Belltown Hill Orchards, South Glastonbury, Conn., is a 110-year-old farm on 180 acres today run by brothers Donald and Michael Preli, fourth-generation family growers.
They grow sweet cherries, blueberries, tree fruit and squash, finishing the season with pumpkins and apples for wholesale, on-farm retail and you-pick sales.
“Everything went smoothly, to our surprise,” Donald Preli said, as season trickled down at the end of October.
“As a whole, I think everybody had a pretty decent year because of retail doing better. From what I hear, everybody fared better than they expected.”
Farmers, marketers and distributors kept business going by requiring masks, social distancing and finding new ways to sell products during the COVID-19 pandemic, said Connecticut Agriculture Commissioner Bryan Hurlburt.
“Like everything with the pandemic, the rollercoaster has been steep in the beginning and a lot of high ups and low downs. I think we are at a more level place,” Hurlburt said. “The ups and downs did sort of level out.”
A lot of Connecticut’s farms and wholesalers that depended on foodservice customers found new ways to market their goods, using cooperative efforts, community supported agriculture subscription memberships, and direct-to-consumer pickup and delivery.
“You can’t be a farm for hundreds of years and multiple generations if you’re not entrepreneurial and innovative and find new ways to market your goods and meet market demand,” Hurlburt said. “So, we saw a number of folks do just that.”
The third smallest state in the U.S. in land size, Connecticut is filled with small farmers and a thriving farmers market and farmstand sector.
Business is still “very, very good,” said Kevin Bassette of Killam and Bassette Farmstead, also in South Glastonbury.
Owned by Kevin, his wife, Chris, and his former employer, Henry Killam, the farm has more than 45 acres of fresh produce. Sweet corn comprises 20 acres alone.
In November, Bassette has collard greens, broccoli, cauliflower, turnips, beets, late kale and carrots.
They have two farmstands, one full-service and one on-site using the honor system, and they sell their produce at several farmers markets statewide, offer four community-supported agriculture subscription memberships and curbside delivery.
“I’d never had that many people come knocking at my door to buy something. They were coming from all over, not just nearby,” Kevin Bassette said.
Chris Bassette established curbside delivery, especially for people more vulnerable to the coronavirus. The driver would go to the home, place the food down, ring the doorbell and leave.
She also changed the payment procedure to Paypal and Venmo to reduce touching during in-person purchases. And they instituted gloves, masks, extra tables, sanitizer and bagged produce.
The 144 outdoor stalls of the farmers market at the Connecticut Regional Market, Hartford, were delayed from opening at its traditional season-opening time while officials figured out how to handle the usual crowds, Hurlburt said.
But the five fresh produce wholesale distributors, plus Sysco, that use the inside of the warehouses at the regional market never stopped.
Preli kept taking his Belltown Hill products there.
“They had a few different rules, but it was probably a long time coming — like driving one way through the market — nothing that (was) deterring selling the product,” he said.
This season’s lighter crop meant larger fruit, which isn’t the preferred size for foodservice and institutions anyway, Preli said.
Belltown Hill Orchards’ major retail customer, Big Y Foods, Springfield, Mass., had its produce buyer work from home, Preli said, which made things a little slower, but not too much.
“We were not really as affected as what we panicked about earlier,” Preli said.
Taking up more than 35% of the market share, Stop & Shop was by far the retail leader in the third quarter of 2020, according to Shelby Market data of the Connecticut, Massachusetts and Vermont cities of Hartford, East Hartford,
Middletown, New Haven-Milford, Norwich-New London and Springfield.
Big Y was another big leader, with 19.6% of the market share, more than double the third-place ShopRite, with 9.6% share.
Then came Walmart, Whole Foods Market, Price Chopper, BJ’s Wholesale Club, Target, Geissler’s Supermarket and Price Rite.
Those stores comprised the top 10 leading grocery retailers in this New England region.
As winter approaches, there is rising anxiety, the challenge of “COVID fatigue” and a possible rollercoaster market as a number of towns see spikes in COVID-19 positivity rates, Hurlburt said.
“I think that we all need to be patient. I think that we all need to stay and be reminded that each individual one of us can make a difference and if we use the proper protocols, we can minimize the outbreak and the spread,” Hurlburt said.
“And the more we can minimize the risk of COVID, the more we can keep the economy open and keep events happening, whether it be indoor farmers markets, farmstands or helping our local grocery stores to do more to place CT-grown products on their shelves.”
