Small Bites
September 22, 2022
Making a difference by creating opportunities to promote & sell more VT products to more buyers in the northeast & beyond
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September=Fall=shifts. We see changes in shopping habits, an increase in intense field work harvesting storage crops, stores adjusting to changing staffing & of course the change in day light that welcomes autumn. For some businesses it is a time to regroup with staff retreats, or close for deep cleaning or a well-needed vacation before leaf peeping goes full tilt.
The Genny in Albany took time for a staff retreat while Minifactory & VSmiley Preserves closed for a week to catch their breath after opening their cafe & production location in Bristol in May. Meeting the expectations of the community while navigating staffing has been non-stop. At Keeler Bay Variety, in the heart of the Islands, they too are regrouping after the summer tourist & boating season transitioning back to more local customers. At stores a good time to breathe is now, before the travelers arrive for peak foliage & stop for premium baked goods, Vermont focused specialty foods, & poke around farmstands.
September can be the time to deep clean produce departments & prepare for the crates of squash & apples that are ubiquitous at our stores. Retooling for seasonal sales is always recommended providing a clean slate for local shoppers as well as featuring the bounty of your county.
Read on for info on our producers, distributors & stores working to move the needle on local & regional sales.
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Easy to Shop
One thing about increasing sales at food stores is knowing you are doing all you can to "make it easy to shop". So that inventory turnover & reordering is amplified. This is a loaded statement.
Some basics that are easy to do include having signage in place, bags handy, well-crafted displays in all food categories, sell-by-dates rotated effectively, merchandising that is accessible to all, & displays that don't create an avalanche or danger to short shoppers.
Another aspect of making it easy to shop can lean into the more abstract concept of meeting your target customers with appropriate products, pricing structures, & services. With more & more concern from shoppers around "social ' issues like trying to reduce plastic, caring about local farms, connecting the economic dots of the multiplier effect on their local communities there is opportunity to fine tune product mixes & promotions.
Then again, many folks are not tuned into issues at all. Pricing is everything & it's a real concern. Stores seek to have everyday value products; by promoting them & making them easy to shop helps stores meet customer needs.
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With the arrival of Autumn, it is time for stores to rethink their local grain, flour, & bean purchases. And for our producers to regroup for new sales opportunities.
Everyone knows diets shift with the seasons. More squash. More apples. More mushrooms & of course more baking. Lucky for us we have wonderful producers of all of these.
Nitty Gritty Grain is an organic farm-based business working the land 100% single source corn & wheat from their farm on the west coast of the state in Charlotte. They sell both 1-pound retail & 50-pound food service pack sizes. Their heirloom Wapsie Valley open- pollinated cornmeal can be used for making polenta. They produce fantastic cornmeal pancake & muffin mix which is perfect to showcase for fall travelers. Catch the video to learn about the farm.
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"New" Bakeries to Know & Love
Located in the center of St J, Boule Bakery are bakers of sourdough artisan specialties with a huge local following. Purchasing local ingredients is key to their business strategy because with local roots, relationships matter.
"Breads are naturally leavened sour doughs, crafted by hand & baked every day from fresh local ingredients. We proudly serve King Arthur Flour, local grains, Cabot butter, & milk from Vermont cows."
In addition to the breads, they also create magnificent specialty cakes for events. This young bakery has come just at the right time, started in 2021, with support from the VtSBDC, they are meeting their personal goals along with community needs. Their delicious & creative flair & selling direct to customers 5 days a week is exactly where they hoped to be. Read more about them in this recent 7 Days article.
Across the state in Pawlet, Butternut Bend Baking Co. was also established in 2021 by Lyndsi Barnes. She continues to honor her family tradition of handmade baked goods with locally sourced ingredients. She moved her family from Brooklyn in the early stages of the pandemic then went full on to develop her business. She sells her goods to local stores DSD including Mach's Market.
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More Than One Way to Grow
Free Verse Farm is an herb farm & apothecary in Chelsea, specializing in naturally grown herbs for teas, culinary, remedies, body care, & bulk sales.
Herbs & remedies are available at their retail shop, local stores, & through Food Connects & 3rd party wholesale buying platforms Mable & Faire. The farm sells nationally through these outlets but would like to remind our readers that their complete line is available locally too. VT, NH & MA Coops & natural food stores are a key target for increasing their wholesale footprint.
Herbs are harvested by hand & freshly dried on the farm. Dried in traditional hanging bunches, & a farm-made herb dryer, with utmost care to preserve the essential constituents that give each herb its flavor & potency. The business is growing & expanding their capacity to dry more herbs. They have a launched a "Barn Raising" fundraising campaign to help them expand drying with a new barn & solar power. Catch this short video about the farm & the barn project & the essential improvements for the long-term sustainability of their growing business
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GOOD NEWS!
Readers of Small Bites might remember back several months ago that cheesemakers Kate Turcotte & Zach Munzer of Orb Weaver closed the operation due to complicated factors around lack of housing & childcare.
The good news is that Kate's cheesemaking skills will carry on with her new position at von Trapp Farmstead. In Vermont we have extraordinary cheesemakers. It is wonderful that vTF's success will continue with Kate on board. Look for more awards in the future from Von Trapp.
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Pro Tip: Clean Beneath Your Moveable Displays
With a bit of a break in the action, now is a great time to "clean out the corners". Think how nice it will be to have both moveable & permanent displays wiped down, dusted & ready for new squash, potato & root crops ready to be stocked with a clean look. This is true for all grocery end caps too. Customer respond favorably to cleanliness & it helps preserve produce quality by managing mod & desiccated produce.
So that the project is not too intimidating, break the task out into smaller chunks so the staff doesn't feel overwhelmed.
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Robie Farm Meat & More
Located on the banks of the Connecticut River in NH, Robie Farm has an unwavering passion for sustainability for the land, their herd, & for each other. This thread has been woven throughout the seven generations that have lived & worked the farm. Their dedication to keeping healthy, happy, & productive livestock & their ability to diversify to meet market shifts has contributed to their success.
Robie prides themselves on the quality, fair pricing, & super fresh chicken. Their chicken is a huge seller at the Community Market in Vergennes, & almost all the chicken is processed to order; any frozen is frozen the day of processing. Shipping through Upper Valley Produce enables them to sell products to a wider number of stores & offers their products to other stores & farmstands. Order on Mondays through UVP for lining up standard orders.
The Robie farm store serves local customers with a wide range of other products besides their own.
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Food Service Pack Feature
Olivia's Croutons & Joe's Kitchen Soups are two local companies with food service pack sizes perfect for store cafes & farm sales. With "soup season" having arrived, consider a side of Olivia's with the single serve grab & go soups or as a family-style re-pack. Both companies utilize Vermont ingredients from flour to produce contributing to the greater multiplier effect of economic impact.
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Dorset Union Store has a fabulous prepared meals program with locally purchased foods. Real Food. Made by Real Chefs. Here Mighty
Food Farm provides a rainbow of beets that is the base for Chef Connie's beet, tomato, arugula salad with mustard dressing. Pure autumn inspiration found at the the town center.
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Producer Buyer Forum Returns!
The Forum is in its fifth year, with a gap of course.
If you are new to Bites & aren’t familiar with our Forum, it is an in-person gathering designed to create opportunities to meet folks engaged in the full process of getting products to market. Open to all, it focuses on Vermont brands, regional distributors, & buyers of all sizes. Our formula is an introductory speaker, a panel of businesses, round table topics & the “mocktail” hour for free-style networking. The event is from 10-2:30. There is no fee to attend. Space is limited.
If you ever wondered why a distributor didn't bring on your product, you might get an answer. Or why it is hard to meet a store buyer...or what brands do stores see as "on trend" or better understand in store product placement…or hear firsthand stories of growth & the challenges faced, or maybe you want to meet other producers or chat it up with store buyers.
This is not a trade show, but food manufacturers are encouraged to bring spec sheets & samples to share with buyers. We will be announcing all the speakers, but we do know many distributors are attending including Associated Buyers of NH, Upper Valley Produce, Pumpkin Village Foods, Food Connects. Large & small stores are encouraged to have their key staff join in. Find out more info here about Nov 2 in Randolph.
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ACORN Food Hub is
Up & Running
ACORN took a cautious road to reach their goal for a local food & distribution hub. Over ten years ago research was undertaken to develop a food hub that meets the needs & capacity of local producers.
This will provide a new opportunity for cross docking products to reach all corners of the state & ultimately with a regional footprint. Addison County producers have longed for easier access to extend their market channels & ship their products to the greater northeast. This food hub is a step in that direction.
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Farmstand Seasonal Shifts
Across the state farmstands are reducing hours or even closing up for the season. As sales diminish, a lot of energy is instead focused on bringing in storage squash, root crops & tending to their field prep for winter ahead. Processing the produce for wholesale is another significant part of the fall farm operation.
The stands that remain open are full tilt ready for leaf peepers with bountiful maple products, apples, fall produce & locally produced body care products such as those from Free Verse Farm.
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Peaceful Harvest Mushrooms located in Worcester, Vermont brings their diverse skills to grow their organic mushroom-based business. This is the only FDA medicinal mushroom operation in Vermont. The family operation evolved from their combination of a hobby & career developing novel drug compounds & clinical pilot plans in the pharmaceutical industry. Since embarking on a career shift & building their business, they are now well versed in supply chain management, mushroom cultivation, facility design, construction maintenance, general management, HR, regulatory compliance, & scientific research. Made in VT, a segment from WCAX ran a story about them this summer, catch it here.
They are selling their tinctures & blends to stores across Vermont & the country through 3rd party wholesale platform Mable & shipping direct to stores & farmstands. They seek new store buyers across Vermont & all of New England. The natural foods coops & independent stores are a target for new accounts.
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Chandler Pond Farm in Wheelock is still full-on selling. They have introduced new cheeses to their extensive selection. One thing they do so well is share wonderful pictures on social media, send out emails to subscribers, & make it clear when they are open & how folks can pay.
Their payment system is clearly indicated, easy to use & efficient. They accept exact cash, check, Venmo or PayPal. On Saturday with deliveries of fresh donuts, their sales are always brisk! The farmstand is open 8-8 daily.
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So Much Going On!
Across Vermont orchards are busy. As a result of the pandemic, more of them have widened the range of ways to engage with customers. We have seen many more hosting music, food trucks. & pop-up caterers.
Weekends are of course the busiest time but many host early evening events. When the weather is great, the crowds are too. But Vermonters know even cool rainy days can be a joy at the orchards.
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In the "Before Times" stores sent their staff to visit farms to better understand how food is grown, packed & shipped. Now with staffing tight at farms & stores this has become less & less of an option.
It cannot be overstressed how valuable farm visits are for the farmer to showcase their operations to a target group & the value of staff engaging on a personal level. Visits become part of the story told at stores that further inform shoppers of the how & why of local purchasing.
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Shipping & Packaging
Sylvacurl is a Vermont wood products company that created compostable & reusable wood shavings for shipping food & other CGP products. McLure Packaging Systems is reputed for working with small & large businesses that support thoughtful approaches to eco-friendly materials so that products arrive safely. Together these two companies are changing the shipping & packaging paradigm & meeting the changing marketplace.
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Pumpkin Village Foods, a local distributor covering northern Vermont that also has a reach into NYC. They spend a lot of time on the road working hard to create, impact, & sustain our local economy. As they said in a recent email to their constituents,
" Like it or not, we are in the trucking industry. Truckers are part of our community. We know long days in trucks. When I'm on the road and pass a UPS or Fed-Ex truck later in the evening - I know that person is still working & just wants to get home. I believe most of them work 5 days a week - unlike us sharing responsibilities with no driver delivering more than two days a week. It is hard work."
In reflection, they would like us all to engage in kindness throughout the local food supply chain (of course their intent is for kindness to reach more widely too) . PVF hopes we call can better engage in a positive ripple effect by recognizing that every act has impact.
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Congratulations to the Vermont 4H Dairy squad who took home so many awards at The Big E this week while competing against 4H'ers from throughout New England. Among the wins, Vermont captured first place with team member Emma Seward of East Wallingford named high individual scorer. She scored a whopping 55 points ahead of the second-place finisher, a 4-H'er from Rhode Island. Our farmers are top-notch at every age!
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Small Bites comes to you via USDA & High Meadows grants. Content is created for farmers, food manufacturers, distributors, grocers to increase VT food sales
Contact: Annie H Harlow
Unless otherwise noted, photo credits are from company social media, websites or Annie Harlow
Photo Credits: von Trapp blue Cheese City Market
All info is subject to change; thank you to all who contributed to this issue!
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