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Small Bites
October 31, 2024
Creating opportunities to support & amplify regional food systems, not only in Vermont. We feature producers, distributors, and retail connections in a global marketplace with insights applicable to regions outside the state, hence the picture of Massachusetts cranberries for the November rush!
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The Vermont Grocers Project is hosting the 7th Producer Distributor Buyer Forum at the Retreat Farm in Brattleboro on November 12 from 9:30-2:00.
REGISTER HERE SOON!
The Forums originally conceived by Annie Harlow while on the ACORN Board, ties together the "food system" with all the elements of commerce. Each year is a unique take on addressing current issues with a wide range of topics including farmers growing contractually for food manufacturers, unique distribution variables, & the conundrums faced by retail buyers. The event is open to all & is by no means specific to Vermont. The Forum aligns with the goals of NEFNE and the 30x30.
Join an interesting mix of businesses & organizations seeking to expand sales in a complex global network of influences. It's not too late to register but do it soon before registration closes!
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Not Taking Things for Granted
A general manager assumes a huge number of responsibilities running a store. It is a complex entwining of constant analysis, supporting staff to run their departments, while remembering to celebrate the beauty of creativity. It can be so easy to overlook the work dedicated teams put into displays.
Large stores may have deft instore merchandising teams that dovetail with their external marketing. Yet, embedded are decisions driven by a team of buyers which meld distributor sales with their standard product mix. At smaller stores, tight on labor dollars, it may be done more "off the cuff" lending to a creative display commensurate with labor, space, pricing, & product availability.
Creativity to move products has its own set of values & variables. At the Buffalo Mountain Market, a front display of squash, apples, & local dried amaranth speaks to the store's customers, & the staff. It was noted by Emily, the General Manager to celebrate the creative, the educational, while supporting seasonal sale of local products. Thanks Emily, for sharing the store's creativity with our Small Bites readers.
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It's Baking Season!
There’s a place at the table for corn on Thanksgiving. And for corn muffins, nothing is better than Champlain Valley's Nitty Gritty!
Their grain comes from their farm. Single-sourced & small batch, each of the Nitty Gritty products are certified organic. As stewards of the land, they care not only about sustainable farming methods to produce the grains inside the package, but the package itself is compostable. Support sustainable, Vermont agriculture, & contact Nitty for the direct to store shipping options.
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Goodman's is Back!
When a business grows, there can be gaps in production leading to unfilled slots in stores. This happened recently when the Ludlow Goodman's American Pie temporarily closed as it moved into its new location. Once the ovens were running & staff had ample time to work on new production systems, Lesser Distribution was ready to refill store coolers!
Pizza is an American staple. It generates sales & margin dollars. "Frozen" buyers from Morrisville to Lincoln to Londonderry were anxious to replenish the slot held by Goodman's. As you read in a recent Small Bites, there was another gap in frozen pizza with the shuttering of Rustic Crust, makers of American Flatbread based in New Hampshire. In 2018 private equity Advantage Capital Agribusiness Partners invested $8 million to "expand its brand & strengthen operations" to execute sales growth”. Despite 2022’s strong reporting by ACAP, in September 2024 there was a massive layoff, closing down of the operation that produced several brands of frozen pizza sold throughout New England.
| "Some of the companies that private equity firms buy go on to great success. But others collapse or limp along, gutted of the assets that made them worth buying in the first place." -from Plunder by Brendan Ballou | |
Marketing: Works!
Pam Knights Commuication has a long arc of working to help develop strong marketing among our farm & food businesses. Lucky for us, she has a fine feel assisting independent stores to broaden their marketing, including Keeler's Bay Variety. She incorporates multi-faceted media interfacing, for increased customer engagement & ultimately to successful marketing programs that generate sales.
She has just recently begun working with the Main Street Market in Richford as part of the VT Grocers Project. This unique store operates as a non-profit under the auspices of the Northern Tier Center for Health, a federally qualified facility. One way to look at the store is as a community service entwined with a social mission playing a critical role as the only full-service food store in the town. The market’s direct link to the healthcare center embraces a wider sense of "community wellness" making it completely unique in Vermont, & perhaps in our nation.
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Heroes Come in Many Forms
Keeler's Bay Variety
While planning the recent anniversary celebration for its customers on Saturday, September 21, 2024, the Horne family thought of a special way to celebrate & donate to a local cause. They asked the South Hero Volunteer Fire Department to oversee grilling hot dogs & hamburgers at their 50th Customer Appreciation Day celebration. The win-win worked out well, resulting in a $3,090 donation to the fire department, with KBV doubling the original $1500 in donations collected throughout September & at the event.
“It was a great event, and we had fun interacting with the community,” said Chief Patrick Robinson. “The money raised will help us purchase key pieces of equipment used in ice rescue throughout the county.”
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NEK: We've Got it Covered
Tucked in the hills & valleys of the northeast corner of the state are loads of independent food based businesses. Located in the southwest corner of the Northeast Kingdom (got it?) is Vermont Soy, makers of small batch tofu. Since 2007 this has become one of Vermont's honored producers for the vegan, non-GMO, gluten free category.
Part of the mission has always been a connection to the land with an eye on helping farmers grow soy locally to help fulfill the ongoing demand. Products are widely available to natural food stores & coops who have consistently supported this independently owned producer. Products are widely available through
Green Mountain Farm Direct, Pumpkin Village Foods, Intervale Food Hub, PFG/BRP, & US Foods.
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Defining VT Local
In prior Small Bites, you have seen the clues about what is "local" to Vermont per ACT 129. Here is an example of a complying business:
Processed foods are broken into two subgroups. A product is considered a ‘processed food’ whenever it is not a raw agricultural product, but processed foods also include raw agricultural products that have been subject to processing, such as canning, cooking, dehydrating, milling, or the addition of other ingredients.
Processed foods include dairy, meat, maple products, beverages, fruit, or vegetables that have been subject to processing, baked, or modified into a value-added or unique food product.
Processed foods are “local” and/or “Vermont” food if:
• The majority of ingredients (meaning more than 50 percent of all product ingredients by volume, excluding water) are raw agricultural products that are “local” to Vermont;
• The product was either processed in Vermont or the food manufacturer is headquartered in Vermont (or both are true).
Sisters of Anarchy is considered a Vermont Local company. It is based in state, utilizes Vermont dairy, & farm-grown fruit for much of its flavoring.
Stores, contact the Sisters for wholesale inquiries! AND provide a "Vermont local attribute" in your POS so you can capture the sales data for NEFNE!
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This Is What
We're Talkin' About!
A gathering of the vibes that is what November 12th will be. It will be veritable human be-in of food folks learning from each other about a variety of aspects getting food from farms through to retail. It's New England focused, but the value is universal due to a range of influences: mergers, acquisitions & consolidation, private equity, access to capital for emerging brands, large national retailers influence on distributors, contract purchases, trade spends. We will be covering many topics.
When asked, the registrants delivered a HUGE range of topics to touch on. In our "Stump the Chumps": portion, incidentally, everyone in the room is a "chump" with the potential to answer questions posed. It is not a conference, more a casual setting & approach to hearing various sides of increasing regional food in a global world.
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When we hear "Deductions Are My Life" we Listen!
One of the Grocers Project's favorite links is to the work of Gregory Esslinger who for years helped brands build sales while at UNFI. Now, he helps guide them through "deduction language" & interpret the complex contracts & the nuances embedded in different stages of growth as a 'deductions linguist". As a walking encyclopedia he has taken his knowledge & has worked extensively on a deductions management system through Floret. It is a platform that organizes & classifies chargebacks. A tool like this can be essential as brands expand distribution & brokerage options.
Lucky for us, Gregory is one of our panelists at the November 12th Forum!
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The ABCs of SKUs & UPCs
SKU: Stock Keeping unit
In inventory management, SKU is the unit of measure in which the stocks of a material are managed. It is a distinct type of item for sale, purchase, or tracking in inventory. All attributes associated with the item distinguish it from other item types (for a product, these attributes can include manufacturer, description, material, size, color, packaging, & warranty terms). When a business records the inventory of its stock, it counts the quantity it has of each unit, or SKU.
Barcodes are symbols that can be scanned electronically using laser or image-based technology. They are used to encode information such as key identifiers (product, shipment, location, etc.) & key attributes (serial numbers, batch/lot numbers, dates, etc.) via GS1 syntaxes.
Barcodes play a key role collecting data in supply chains, enabling parties like retailers, manufacturers, transport providers & hospitals to automatically identify & track products (SKUs) as they move through the supply chain.
PLU: Price look-up codes or produce codes, are a system of numbers that uniquely identify bulk produce sold in grocery stores . The codes have been in use since 1990. They are administered by the International Federation for Produce standards (IFPS), a global coalition of fruit & vegetable associations that was formed in 2001 to introduce PLU numbers globally.
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Are you one of our readers who drives the highways & byways, or bored of watching mindless stuff? Maybe you need to just kick back & listen to how things work in the food system! For the November 12th Forum, we were not able to bring in Errol Schweizer, so the next best thing is to remind y'all of his insights through The Checkout podcasts.
I always learn a lot about "what I don't know" of our food-commerce landscape. Keep in mind Errol is a national treasure sharing his vast experiences in a way it mostly can make sense (meaning some of the food system stuff you have to wonder!) It is at this time, it only makes sense that I remind readers to dive into Austin Frerick's book Barons, Money, Power, & the Corruption of America's Food Industry.
Between the Errol & Ausint they fill in the blanks of how the financial incentives & power structures drive the trillion- dollar food economy.
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Federal Money Well Spent:
The Gift That Keeps Giving
With funding from the Dairy Business Innovation Center, an open-source guide for greener & sustainable packaging suppliers was created by Big Picture Farm. The focus is on suppliers that cater to small & medium-sized producers. In the guide, all the links to suppliers are clickable.
It grew out of their need to transform their entire packaging line to one that is free of virgin plastic & 100% zero-waste (either home compostable or curbside recyclable). It is to be considered an evolving guide, continually updated with additional suppliers & new technologies. The funding aimed to help small producers save some time in their own quest to innovate their packaging in an eco-conscious way. The more of us that do it, the better off the planet will be. And the greater the demand for these materials, the greater the supply will follow, and the more competitive the pricing will become. Thank you to Big Picture & the federally funded Dairy Innovation Center that invests in regional dairy.
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Farmer as Retail
It's a weird fall, but that is our new normal as far as weather goes. And we all know how weather affects shopping habits.
Many farmstands stay open to Thanksgiving for the final push before they get a bit of a rest. Sweet Brussels sprouts, hefty late spinach, gorgeous root crops & of course local meat & dairy are available at so many of the farmstands open. It's a challenging time balancing inventory that they bring in from distributors as customer counts drop.
Sometimes having fall on-farm activities garner high sales beyond the activity. Recently Chandler Pond Farm had a lovely "Witches Broom Making Workshop" which created a wonderful bond among its registrants while also generating sales.
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Networks Matter:
Farm to Plate Annual Gathering at Killington's Grand Resort is
November 20 & 21. Registration is OPEN for the two days of collaborative problem solving, skill building, & innovation in Vermont’s food system. This year it is centered around the theme Transformative Action. & all readers of Small Bites are encouraged to attend!
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Rocket & Eat Vermont
If you read Small Bites, you must have seen Rocket of Eat Vermont. He is a mission- driven man on a mission building a mobile application to gather all parties in the food system in one place with the goal of sharing useful & timely information. Check out this video link for app details. The goal is to create efficiency across the state, empowering local food to be resilient, robust, & because of his style fun! He has a great write up in 7 Days on the growth of the app & as with food businesses juggling the myriad growth stages.
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New England Feeding
New England
Wampanoag People across southeastern Massachusetts have enjoyed the annual harvest of sasumuneash - wild cranberries - for 12,000 years. Some ate berries fresh while others dried them to make nasampe (grits) or pemmican - a mix of berries, dried meat & animal fat which could last for months. Cranberries were used in traditional healing rituals to fight fever, swelling, & even seasickness.
Read more about the history & current state of the cranberries, The #1 crop in Massachusetts.
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Did you Know?
Farm to Plate's events/news/jobs page is a go-to list to connect & learn. Check it out regularly & share your good stuff too! Ooddles of updates that can include agroforestry, women farmer summits, butchering seminars, staffing news, & so much more.
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Calling All Readers
Feed me info on farm, food, or retail stores. Email a pic, a link, a short tale, etc. In a world half crazy, let's share the good things! email:
smallbites802@gmail.com
We cover food production, delivery, sales, & global supply chain variables to support viable regional food systems. We are definitely Vermont focused, but this info is widely applicable for stores & farmstands to increase local food sales.
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Special Thanks: Pam Knights, Lesser Distribution, Gregory Esslinger,
Rocket & Eat Vermont, Katelyn Porter, Buffalo Mountain Market, Main Street Market,
Errol Schweizer & The Checkout
Small Bites comes to you via grants & is created for farmers, food manufacturers, distributors, & grocers to increase VT food sales. We support the New England State Food System Planners Partnership effort to strengthen the regional food economy
Contact: Annie Harlow
smallbites802@gmail.com
All info is subject to change.
Created with support from the Canaday Family Charitable Trust
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