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How The Pandemic Revolutionized The Farm Share Business
Like eating your fruits and vegetables, farm shares have always been an idealistic proposition. Growers offered boxes full of fresh, seasonal produce to consumers, who would cook up whatever they received that week. The boxes were purchased by subscription. Farmers got cash flow and consumers didn’t have to go to the store or market as much.
There were a few problems with that business model. For one thing, about a quarter of Americans live alone, and the boxes were often more than they could consume on their own. Not everyone liked the selection. And, paying up front for a weekly share could be prohibitive.
All that is now changing, in large part because of the pandemic.
Beyond one size fits all
Farm share subscriptions, which some call CSAs, for community supported agriculture, have borrowed some of the traits of grocery shopping.
Many offer at least two sizes of boxes if not more. Customers can swap out items they don’t want. They can pause their subscription for vacation and skip weeks if they are full up on food. Most notably, many items beyond farm grown products are available, from tortilla chips and rice to ground beef and cheesecake.
Web-based shopping is a key reason for this significant shift. While some outlets built their own ordering platforms, others subscribe to a farmer-focused one called Harvie. It originates with a Pittsburgh farm share that has marketed its technology to other organizations.
Here in New Orleans, I signed up for a farm share with Covey Rise Farm. It supplies restaurants and shops in the area, and crafted the boxes to use up produce. Before the pandemic, 70% of its business came from restaurants with the boxes making up 30%. Now, with restaurants closing and others ordering less, the mix has shifted to 60-40, says Grady Seale, who manages the farm and is a part owner.
Covey sells five different sized boxes. I’m getting the Mini, which costs $23 a week and brought to town every two weeks. When things kicked off, I scrolled through a long list of possible items and clicked on the ones I would accept. Covey promised not to send me anything I don’t want to eat, but I knew it would depend on what was available.
I was delighted when this email arrived.
And even more excited to see I could swap out what I didn’t want. I deleted the bell peppers and got sweet corn instead. Meanwhile, I also learned I could add items to my box, if I acted quickly.
I didn’t do that the first week. In week two, I added a piece of goat cheese cheesecake, tickled to find out you can get cheesecake in a farm share.
This week, I stretched my wings even further. I added locally grown jasmine rice, oyster mushrooms and a pound of Wagyu ground beef. I don’t eat a lot of red meat or pork, so I thought having one portion in the freezer might satisfy a meat craving at some future time.
Many more choices
As adventurous as my New Orleans choices seem, some farm shares are going even further.
In Pittsburgh, Harvie farm share customers can choose from an amazing 450 items for their boxes, which come in $35 and $99 sizes. They can add things like tortilla chips, salsa, cinnamon rolls, granola, tinned fish, and fresh pasta, and strive to source it locally.
Back home in Ann Arbor, farms and shops are experimenting with different variations, too. Several offer flower shares, where you either get a pre-made bouquet or can assemble your own for a weekly fee. Most intriguing to me is the Immune Booster box from Tantre Farm.
It’s an assortment of produce and prepared foods from local restaurants, shops and pop ups. The latest box focused on breakfast items, including pancake mix, kombucha, a dozen eggs, cooked vegetarian hash, blueberries and oatmeal.
As the choices become more varied, there are obvious advantages. Consumers get inspirations and are more likely to keep getting their boxes, rather than drop out.
Farmers don’t have to shoulder the burden of filling every box, a real issue in Louisiana, where the growing season pauses in July and August due to intense weather. Fledgling brands put their wares into more peoples’ hands.
But, the broader selection means complexity. Someone has to prepare all those boxes, after all. Grady told me he spends three days a week just on boxes, leaving him less time to concentrate on farm duties. And when farmers run out of an item, they can’t really run to the store for more. They ARE the store.
Still, if you haven’t been part of a CSA or you tried one in the past and gave up, you might look around your area and see what’s new. There’s a Wagyu burger in my future.
Soda Bread With A Bake Off Star
Last Sunday morning, I sat in my New Orleans living room and took a class in soda bread with one of the stars of the Great British Bake Off. Jane Beedle is among the Bake Off contestants who teach classes with Bake With A Legend.
The program began before the pandemic with in-person classes, then swiftly morphed to virtual learning during the shut down months. Now, they’re all taught via Zoom.
The class was free., a perk for subscribers to the Bake With A Legend newsletter. We were sent a list of ingredients in advance and could bake along if we wished. But, it was just as interesting watching and listening to Jane.
Her soda bread is a platform for different flavors. I never would have thought to put chocolate chips in soda bread (tip: make sure you press them into the dough before baking, so they don’t melt and burn on the baking sheet).
Jane interacted continuously with the students during the demo, which made it more conversational than many classes I’ve watched. She’s also completely at ease on camera, which makes it a professional level experience.
You can find a list of upcoming classes, instructors and prices here. Jane has three new ones coming up: Cheese & Onion Pasties, an Asparagus & Pea Tart as well as fabulous Maple Pecan and White Chocolate Raspberry Choux Nuts. She is also teaching Tiramisu and many other classes are listed.
Private sessions are available. Wouldn’t that be a fun idea for a family event or friends’ gathering?
A Temp Agency For Restaurant Staff
I’ve written about the issues that restaurants and food places are having in filling their vacancies. The Takeout reports that a new app called Qwick has sprung up to help them find employees.
Think of it as Kelly Services or maybe Uber, except for restaurants. On it, restaurants can post shifts and temporary employees can pick them up, from servers to cooks to bartenders. The openings can be in real time or for upcoming events.
“Right now the app is only available in limited cities—11 major cities currently use the app with 12 more launching it soon,” the Takeout reports.
Potential staff looking to pick up shifts need to fill out a profile and prove they have experience in certain roles, completing an orientation and providing certificates when necessary. As they are hired, they receive a QwickScore, essentially a star rating for workers, similar to Uber and Lyft. Those with higher star ratings will be sent more shifts as soon as they’re listed. The payment for any shift gets sent out the next day.
My first thought: nothing can go wrong here, right? (That’s skepticism.) It might solve the current dilemma in which restaurants find themselves, but it seems to make an already transitory industry even more transitory.
Why would anyone commit to a staff job, when they could simply click on the app and try another environment? And, who would want to dine in a place where the staff is constantly changing? (We already have that: it’s called fast food.) How does a chef manage a kitchen when they are continually breaking in new faces? Maybe that all happens now, but it seems like the app would only hasten turnover.
I’d love to hear what you think of this idea, and how you might improve it.
Keeping Up With CulinaryWoman
This week, I wrote about a topic dear to my heart: the perks of being a restaurant regular. I’ve lived in eight different cities around the world, and I’ve tended to take vacations where I can rent a place for at least a week at a time.
In all those places, I’ve zeroed in on one or two spots where I became a regular. The British call it having “your local.” We think of it as your Cheers bar. Here in New Orleans, it’s the High Hat Cafe. In Chicago, Smoque BBQ and more recently, Galit. In Ann Arbor, Zingerman’s Roadhouse.
I’m not averse to trying new places, but there’s a really warm feeling in being welcomed and knowing the names of people who work there. It’s the closest thing we get in our daily lives to being a VIP.
Meanwhile, my fall calendar is starting to fill up with book appearances. I’m excited to be going home to Michigan in mid-September for events in Ann Arbor on the 18th and Milford on the 19th.
Please get in touch if you are interested in having me speak about Satisfaction Guaranteed or any other food world topic. I’m reachable at culinarywoman at gmail dot com. My website is www.michelinemaynard.com.
Last week, CulinaryWoman kicked off its new features for our paid subscribers. Members of the CulinaryWoman Community received my first Red Beans and Advice and participated in The Conversation. They also got a heads up on the contents of this issue.
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The latest coronavirus variant is no joke. Close friends have gotten sick. Please watch your health. If you haven’t gotten boosted, now is a good time. Stay safe and see you next week.