"All you can eat CSA" currently feeding over 200 families

[MikeH]

Essex Farm offers a year-round, full diet, free choice membership. We produce grass-fed beef, pastured pork, chicken, eggs, fifty different kinds of vegetables, milk, grains and flour, fruit, herbs, maple syrup, and soap. Members come to the farm on Fridays, from 3pm to 7pm, and take what they need for the week, in any quantity or combination they choose. We sometimes limit scarce items, like maple syrup or the year’s first tomatoes, but most food is available on an all-you-can-eat basis. Members are encouraged to take extra produce during the growing season for freezing or canning, to supplement what is available from the root cellar during winter and early spring. In addition to food, we offer members the opportunity to hike the farm, visit fields and animals, and join us as volunteers for harvest and field work.We currently farm 600 acres and feed 222 members. We are powered by fifteen solar panels, nine draft horses, ten full-time farmers, and three tractors. We do not use synthetic fertilizer, herbicide, or pesticide. Our animals eat feed we’ve grown ourselves or local hay and local, certified organic grain.

The math is interesting. A family of 4 with 1 five year old and 1 ten year old would spend 8800/year or 170/week to get the bulk of what they would buy in a supermarket. Seems like a very good deal.

[raymondo]

Impressive that they offer so much variety. Must be a very well organised operation.

[littleminnie]

Interesting but how can you trust people? Lucy of Boulder Belt farm has just posted about theft in their CSA store where members can take 12 things of their choosing. So that person ruined it for everyone. I hate to be cynical but people do that kind of thing. Especially being they have meat.

[steev]

Well, it looks like a wonderful thing. Clearly, people are capable of fucking up anything. One hopes they are observant and strong enough to drive off the locusts. This is where community comes into play: that those who are selfish are known and discouraged.

[ottawagardener]

The interesting thing here is that it is an all you can eat set up so with the exception of their scarce items, there couldn't be theft? Maybe someone (wo)mans the store during the day. Sounds like a very big operation. Kinda neat.

[nathanp]

There is an excellent PBS show/movie that features Essex Farm and 2 others in NY, each modeled differently. I wish there was someone near me that was doing this. It's a great model to aim for and hopefully this is a success.

www.smallfarmrising.org/watch.html

[oxbowfarm]

The on-farm CSA distribution model is the best method of running a CSA IMO. The ones that do it the best usually have set times throughout the week for members/shareholders to pick up their share, and usually an employee is minding the "store" at that point. Not so much to prevent theft, although I'm sure it does that, but to make sure the distribution area is stocked and to do people management and customer service. Often there is U-pick areas right near the distribution "store" for things like flowers, berries, and cherry tomatoes etc. Things that are labor intensive/expensive to pick but popular with shareholders.

The kicker is that this distribution method only works well with farms that are easily accessible to a large number of customers of the right demographic profile. If your farm is located in East Boonynowhereville like mine, no one is going to drive there to pick up their share.

If I want to sell vegetables to people, I have to haul the produce to them. I'd rather do that at a farmers market where I'm getting retail for them vs delivering a CSA share where I'm basically giving them the produce wholesale but with all the customer service labor of a retail customer.

[12540dumont]

I could trust my customers to come and pick what they need. However, city folk don't much like this kind of work. If I did this, the first thing that would happen is the insurance company would call me and say I need to raise my insurance to $5 mill, because someone would get hurt. The second thing would be that no one would pick the not well known crops. Third, Suzy Joe would call on Saturday at 6pm to say that she couldn't make it on Friday, so could she come now? Sammy Smith would have only paid for a half a year, because things are tough for them, and every Friday someone would forget their picking stuff and want to borrow more.

The east must be different. The minute I raised the price of a box from $25 to $35 a week, 75% of my CSA went to the $25 bag.

With the increasing cost of PG & E here, I have no choice but to raise prices again next year. The cost per hour for irrigating is $13.94

The cost of groceries is going to skyrocket.

[oxbowfarm]

Jul 20, 2013 16:53:50 GMT -5 12540dumont said:

The east must be different.

I don't have direct experience, I don't do a CSA, but I'd say that there is a huge difference between the way CSAs are structured between the east and west coasts. Not sure why.

There are no supersized operations out east to my knowledge. Mega-CSA's  the likes of Full Circle or Grant Farms are getting pretty common out there.  Bonanza farm mindset?  Grant Farms already went bankrupt recently.

Personally the whole CSA model makes my skin crawl, and I hope to never have to market vegetables that way.

[Walk]

I worked for several years for a mid to large-size organic vegetable farm (80-100 acres in production). They did about 800 CSA boxes per week which was about 1/3 of their annual income. The rest was wholesale, fairly big scale, including semi truckloads to Whole Foods. The CSA income came in early in the year and provided all the startup $ neeeded to get crops going until some revenue could be generated by the wholesale income. This eliminated the need for line of credit loans from the bank to pay early season expenses, a fairly hefty chunk of change with nearly 30 people on payroll. This worked well for them, but I didn't like working for a farm of this scale, even though they were successfully feeding a few thousand folks with their output. I'm much more drawn to the Elliot Coleman model of farming - smaller scale and more hands-on. A couple near here had a really nice CSA setup for about 40 families. They used woven laundry baskets for each member. The member brought the basket back each week for their refill which could include pickles and jams along with the fresh produce and flowers. The pickup was at the weekly farmer's market where they were selling their extra produce each week. Really seemed to be going well, but the couple split and that was the end of that.

From the financial end of it alone, IMO it makes sense to have at least a portion of revenue coming from prepaid sales. In our area, the boxes are prepacked by the farmer to fairly distribute the harvest. Members can swap amongst themselves if they like, or some donate their surplus to the food shelves. The biggest challenge to CSA is the extra time it takes to manage communications, whether one-on-one or through newsletters, and the extra bookkeeping and data entry of tracking each subscription. If you can handle that aspect of the business, it seems worthwhile to add it into the mix of revenues for a small operation. It doesn't have to be an all or nothing approach.

[oxbowfarm]

Jul 21, 2013 8:20:35 GMT -5 Walk said:

From the financial end of it alone, IMO it makes sense to have at least a portion of revenue coming from prepaid sales. In our area, the boxes are prepacked by the farmer to fairly distribute the harvest. Members can swap amongst themselves if they like, or some donate their surplus to the food shelves. The biggest challenge to CSA is the extra time it takes to manage communications, whether one-on-one or through newsletters, and the extra bookkeeping and data entry of tracking each subscription. If you can handle that aspect of the business, it seems worthwhile to add it into the mix of revenues for a small operation. It doesn't have to be an all or nothing approach.

I personally think it is a mistake to combine them. The best CSAs I've seen are pure CSAs. Combining markets and CSA distribution is like trying to run two farms at once and you end up burning out or doing a mediocre job at both.

For us, it seems far better to focus on season extension. We can grow year round, have things out of season, and have continuous income. It also lets us dodge the CSAs, sell produce that they don't have to their shareholders. When the CSA come back to market in June, our lettuce sales drop like a rock because all they have are greens basically. My goal is to taper off greens in June and have as many summer crops like cukes, zucchini, tomatoes that the CSAs don't have yet. Right around now all the summer crops are coming in and the CSAs don't have lettuce etc because its hot. Our lettuce sales are back through the roof.

The problem with CSA IMO is that while it gives you that nice shot of income in the early part of the year, there is no incentive to try and do something like have tomatoes in June, or lettuce in July. You don't get any premium for them, the shareholder already paid for them back in March.

[Joseph Lofthouse]

The thing I hated most about the CSA model was pre-payment. All of a sudden I was responsible for feeding people. It was as bad as milking a cow. I felt bad about crop failures, even though the CSA contract allows the farmer to stiff the buyer in case of crop failure, it still feels horrid. Doesn't matter if I'm sick, or my family dies, or it's too hot, or I need a break. The obligation is still there.

The happy-go-lucky model of the farmer's market works better for me. If I don't feel like picking strawberries one week I can simply say, "no berries this week". Sure a lot less stress now that I am not doing CSA.

After I started growing all my own seeds, the need for early season start-up expenses dramatically decreased.

[12540dumont]

My start up expenses differ from most, because I need to purchase new irrigation each year. That said, my CSA members only pay at the beginning of the month. So July 1 they are all supposed to ante-up for the month of July. In reality I have to chase a couple of them down. Now THAT cheeses my butt.

What I hate about the farmer's market here is the fees:
Fees for inspection before you even sell anything, member fee to the market, and finally the weekly stall fee. One year I had spent $340 in fees before I even sold one head of lettuce. The only person who collects any fees for the CSA is me!

What I love about the farmer's market, is that I could decide what to pick and take. If I felt like picking 20 bouquets of herbs, I could do it, or not.

What I hated was that some weeks I'd sell out and have to sit there until the market closed, because they wouldn't let you break down early. And other weeks, I'd come home with trays of veges, which would necessitate canning and drying when I got home, never mind that I was already tired from picking and packing at 4am!

What I love about the CSA is that "I" and nature alone decide how long we will run for the season. I can stop in September, October or November. Since I run 2 CSA's I can close up one and keep going with the other. Since I collect the money for the first month in December/January. I can start in Feb, Mar or April if the weather is cooperative...or delay until I'm darn good and ready. Since I deliver, I can arrange my picking to suit myself and the delivery schedule to coincide with the heat of the day.

I like knowing in advance how much money I'm going to make if the weather cooperates. Sure I get folks on vacations and the Deadly Drop-outs, and that changes things, but it's not as vague as the farmer's market. There were weeks that I hit the jackpot at the market though, and that never happens in the CSA (bummer huh?)

The biggest improvement I made to my CSA this year was door to door delivery. This resulted in much less frustration for my customers that opted for it. They don't forget to pick-up their boxes. And since their last week's box is on their porch, usually their money is as well. And if it's not, I leave a bill in the box I'm delivering.

Wanting to start early? I don't have to rely on crops that aren't in season. I can start a week early with dry beans, jam, dried corn, fall squash, storage onions, garlic and greens and asparagus! I can plant crops that no one has, and next year they still won't be available anywhere else. Where as at the farmer's market I had to re-invent the wheel every year. If I planted white corn, everyone planted white corn. If I came with purple beans, next year, every other farmer had purple beans. It was annoying! For 5 years I was the only person growing heirloom tomatoes, now everyone has them. And at our market, every darn vege stall looks alike.

I still shop there every Saturday morning. I gotta get my tree fruit!

I am envious of their CSA though. I'd love to have a "real" farmer to help me, vs. the kid who's just doing it for the money and has to be retrained every week.
I'd love to have some one who could "SEE" that the onions are ready to harvest and therefore should not be irrigated....it really is annoying to have to repeat the same things week after week. Pick ALL the zukes that have flowers on them, harvest green beans without no lumps, tomatoes should NOT be green unless the label says they are Green varieties. Sigh. Someday Leo will retire and I'll have a real farmer.

Back to harvesting onions.

[Walk]

For sure, CSA and wholesale field management have different focuses. The big farm that I worked for had 2 managers to oversee the separate operations, coordinating their work where there was overlap. A smaller venture wouldn't need to be so schizophrenic in their approach. CSA's in Minnesota are starting to push the year-round idea. Winter shares are heavy on root crops, stuff like dried hot peppers, and greenhouse greens. Deliveries are less frequent like biweekly or monthly. The communications are a great way to share the farmer's woes, whether lack of rain, too much rain, cold temps, hot temps, etc. I think it's a great way for members to stay in touch with the reality of not only where there food is grown, but the challenges in making it happen. That way they are more aware of the real possibility of problems if and when they do occur, and are able to accept any shortcomings beyond the farmer's control.

[davida]

Thanks for sharing your insight into the CSA, Holly. I was hoping that you could take the time. Excellent food for thought from everyone.