Growers have to become marketers in new ways

You had to crawl out of your comfort zone — if you hadn’t already — to make it as a fruit or vegetable grower in 2020 and going into 2021.

Surviving or thriving meant marketing yourself differently, said Brian Campbell, president of Pennsylvania Vegetable Growers Association.

Campbell was one of the education session speakers at the virtual Mid-Atlantic Fruit and Vegetable Growers Convention, running Feb. 8-11.

“Ultimately, I’m a farmer, but to be successful these days, I have to branch out into many different channels,” said Campbell, owner of Brian Campbell Farms, Berwick, Pa.

The farm has more than 2,000 acres of specialty crops such as pumpkins and sweet corn.

On the opening day of the convention, wholesalers discussed how they’ve adjusted to the new market since the COVID-19 pandemic started.

Campbell said he found a way to fit the Farmers to Families Food Box program into his farm’s marketing strategies.

After winning the U.S. Department of Agriculture grant for the food box program, Campbell’s company was packing 6,000 boxes, at 20 pounds each, a week, for 16 weeks — almost 100,000 boxes with USDA program.

But his company didn’t win the contract for the round that required combination boxes to include meat and dairy.

Even so, Campbell has invested in packing and logistics.

“These boxes have really streamlined and shown we can get decent quality produce in there and easier to handle for a food pantry,” Campbell said. “I think this program will stick around.”

With several major population hubs nearby, including New York City, Pittsburgh and Baltimore, and with the amount of produce that Pennsylvania can provide, Campbell said the food boxes could go beyond Pennsylvania food banks and into the Northeast and Mid-Atlantic regions.

“Even as the pandemic winds down as far as cases, I still think we’ll see the need as far as food insecurity and the need for boxes; I did make some investment as far as packing and logistics; I actually put the food bank boxes first in my priorities. I want to do more with it.”

Seashore Fruit and Produce, a Vineland, N.J., distributor, doesn’t do crop planning with suppliers because food banks are such a good option, said Chad Yagodich, president.

“If a market’s bad, it’s beneficial because (food banks) can suck up some of that excess supply,” Yagodich said.

The missing link is the right communication with farmers, Campbell said.

“We need to get the farmers to buy in to the need out there. We need to be able to offer them something that lets them feel they are a big part of the program,” Campbell said. “I encourage anybody to really focus on reaching out to all the farmers out there that have potential to move excess produce or their No. 2s or whatever.”

More than 100 people attended the convention’s creative marketing and value-added sessions.

Cold Spring Farm, Lawyersville, nestled in the Catskills in upstate New York, used college students to help design a new company logo and website, said Lauren Prezorski, a first-generation farmer with husband Lenny on about 110 acres.

Besides retail business at the greenhouse and expanded farm stand, Cold Spring Farm is a wholesale supplier of fresh produce to other local farm stands, restaurants and grocery stores, including corn, tomatoes, pumpkins and winter squash.

The farm stand, which they expanded in 2019, was a real advantage when the pandemic hit,  and summer customers from urban downstate cities stayed in their summer homes much longer than in typical years.

“Our clientele changed, and our business increased significantly,” Lauren Prezorski said.

Joining Facebook helped them reach people in new ways and have them participate in different ways, such as online contests because on-site sampling was no longer a safe option.

“It was long overdue,” she said.