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Trying to stay the course in these changing times is particularly challenging for our small rural stores. Much of the culture of Vermont, & what people from away love seeing this time of year, are the landmark stores, covered bridges, & communities built around town greens & our sense of history & place.

Sadly, the Buxton Store in the heart of Orwell announced via a video post, they will be closing its doors on October 31. For all our rural stores a plethora of factors are in play from online & prepared meals, competition from convenient "gas station" stores, Dollar Generals, distribution variables, lack of staffing to name just a few. When a small-town store closes, especially when housed in an historic store that has always held a place in the community, the loss is felt widely. This store has been in the Buxton family since 1967, a time when local stores were thriving centers in their communities. However, as Andy said, “It’s a cold, hard fact … that we’ve become non-essential to the majority of the population,” Buxton said. “I don’t say that in an (accusatory) way; it’s just a statement of what we’re seeing.”

Farm to Plate Grocers Project knows how hard a store closure is on a town. When running a small, rural store, you are fully engaged in knowing your customers, it will be hard for the core shoppers as it will be for Andy & Mary to transition from the close relationship they have cultivated. Read the full Addison Independent article

There is a GoFundMe campaign underway to continue to utilize the space as a community center through the formation of a non-profit. The goal is to buy the building from the Buxtons, relieving them of the financial stress of maintaining it & determining a new vision for the town’s center. Read more from the Brandon Reporter.

First Anniversary &

Seasonal Sales

The East Calais General Store

celebrated its first "re-birth" day last weekend. This small town has several historic structures & five national register districts. The store had been Vermont's longest continuously operated store when it closed in 2019. It received grant funds & loads of community support to reframe its stature as a hub. After four years in development, the store has earned its spot as a center & as the only fossil fuel-free operated general store in the state. Check out the store & other Calais historic buildings here.

With foliage in full swing, locals & travelers stopped in to celebrate & to take in the flavors of the season. Activities included ubiquitous #Vermonting cider pressing, three types of artisan made donuts, & loads of folks enjoying time on the broad sweeping front porch taking in the glorious sights, sounds, & scents of October. A young couple from Massachusetts took full advantage of this backroad stopover. The reclaiming of the old store with its 'pressed to order' cider, donuts, & a suite of local products were the perfect stop to grab gifts for their hosts further up the road in the NEK.

Our general stores often struggle to find their place in the changing consumer landscape, but one thing missing from "online, on demand" is the culture of place. The ECGS had the opportunity to showcase its place in the community & to continue as a valued historic site. 

Local Donuts are for sale at the East Calais General Store

Shrewsbury Co-op at

Pierce's General Stores

In the heart of Shrewsbury is another historic store operating as a community supported enterprise.

First opening in 1865, the Pierce family ran the store for most of the 20th century, eventually bequeathing it to the Preservation Trust of Vermont. The organization then sought community support to operate the store which operates as a Shrewsbury Coop at Pierce's Store.

Today, like many small-town stores, they struggle to operate a retail operation in the face of many challenges including learning all the nuances of various state level compliance. These include securing or paying the proper taxes, adherence to alcohol protocols, labor rules, health & safety regulations (& more as noted by the Buxton closure).

These can become issues for small stores focused on getting products in for their potential customers & supporting their various missions which generally include our 'local food economy'. 

"And there’s more competition among those catering to the “small purchases” crowd; gas station /convenience stores have multiplied, & many are carrying the same Cabot cheese, Monument Farms milk & chips that you can get at the independently owned Buxton’s." -Andy Buxton

Support for Community Enterprises

The Preservation Trust of Vermont (PTV) has been awarded $750,000 from the Paul Bruhn Historic Revitalization Grant Program, administered by the National Park Service. PTV’s Bruhn Grant Program is receiving funding to support economic development through the preservation of historic buildings in rural communities across the country. “This locally stewarded work supports improvements to historic buildings, preserving America’s cultural resources while benefiting local economies”, said National Park Service Director Chuck Sams.

Thanksgiving Planning

Is Underway

The organized staff at Brownsville Butcher & Pantry is ready for orders! Having opened at Thanksgiving in 2018, they know well that having systems in place gets the job done.

Their email connected customers received early-bird offerings: the bird, the sides, the gravy, the pies! AND, of course BBP has fabulous local produce, a full selection of beautiful wine, & all the fixings for breakfast for guests the day after! There’s no time like the present to prepare for Thanksgiving sales.

"Cranberry Bob" & Pumpkin Village Foods (PVF) are stoked for the season. It's that time of year where we all go nuts for the most robust & gorgeous cranberries in New England. (Sorry, not sorry Massachusetts!) Stores love to merchandise these as an on-ramp for Thanksgiving sales. Bob sells freshly pressed juice & dried berries through PVF too..

Woodstock Farmers Market has two locations- Waterbury (& well, Woodstock). They are rocking the seasonal food displays & promotions.

"Squashtober" is just one of their raves. When it comes to squash they have a long history of selling literally tons of it. Every imaginable bright orange, yellow, & green are represented with Kuri, Sweet Dumplings, Delicata, Spaghetti, Rouge Vif D'Etampes, sugarpie pumpkins AND so much more!

The marketing team put together a handy customer facing squash guide & info page to get to know the varieties & offers recipes too.

Use this link to help train Produce staff & cashiers on the varieties. Other useful info

from our network includes this handy link from Harvest of the Month

A Coffee Connection

Across Vermont, at rest areas, stores, hotels, & hospitals, a commitment to supporting Jenna's Promise is well established with every cup of coffee served or bag of beans sold. Jenna’s Promise Roasting Co is focused on sourcing & roasting the best coffee from around the world while serving a wide need.

Jenna’s Promise based in Johnson, is a recovery community in northern Vermont with a whole-life approach to the treatment of substance use disorder. The roasting company is a platform for outreach & workplace development for those in recovery.

Join this network that creates pathways to assimilate into society by supporting the transitions from addiction to recovery & to independent living. Join the East Calais General Store as a new retail account for the coffee.

Workplace Conflicts & Creating Productive Conversations

The EmpowR Community invites Small Bites readers to evolve the fear of conflict into a generative practice essential for healthy workplaces. A day long retreat on December 6th in Plainfield, VT might benefit your emerging brand strategy or support your store staff as they navigate a host of social pressures.

Businesses can deepen organizational team building skills through "conflict evolution" while growing collaboration by unlearning & relearning leadership skills. 

Find out the details & register for the day-long retreat nestled in the soothing hills of Vermont.

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).  

Local Donut is considered a Vermont Local company. It is based in state, utilizes Vermont eggs, dairy, & Vermont grown wheat for its line of sour dough breads. Deliveries are exclusively DSD by Nate & Nina at Local Donut.

Stores, be sure to provide a "Vermont local attribute" in your POS so you can capture the sales data!

Exploring the Complicated

We are in the processing of fine-tuning organizing a mid November meet up in Windham County to address the local-global food impacts. There are many intersecting topics: Private Equity funding, distribution consolidation, organic standards are a few. We aim to have have a small group meet up of stores, food manufacturers, & food advocates add their perspectives in this learn-by-sharing event. Stay Tuned as we juggle the details!

As a reader of Small Bites, you know local food is one of our "things". The Vermont Grocers Project aims to facilitate strong store operations but to do that we need to “back down the supply chain' AND “climb through the global variables” that impact all our independently owned businesses. This includes the perverse & entrenched impacts of the financial sector, Plunder is a book that appropriately follows Barons on your 'food system reading list'.

This Is What

We're Talkin' About!

It is mid-October, apples are plentiful & orchardists have thus far had some banner weekend days. Foliage peepers have been enjoying the best of what we have to offer, including our ingenuity!

The first weekend in October, at the summit of APP Gap between The Mad River Valley & The Champlain Valley above Bristol, there was an in-situ cider operation! With a homemade grinder & press, cider was made to order & then some! Hot or fresh off the press, folks were lined up enjoying the fun & uniqueness of cider at the Gap. #Vermonting101

Making the Numbers Work:

It Can be a Rough Road

We all know it. Everything comes down to numbers in one way or another. There seems to be no way around it.

When it comes to distributing local food how much is on the truck (# of vendors & the cases) helps drive the potential for profitability in relation to the number of stops & the delivering to efficient receiving docks.

Our smaller rural general stores can be costly for distributors. The 'order minimums' help to increase sales. Yet at the store level, overbuying can be a fallout. Additional fees can be added to offset the distances between deliveries. Our food hubs, non-profit enterprises & smaller distributors are always in a balancing act to create efficient operations with the best possible pricing.

Other practices employed universally by distributors are trade & marketing spend allowances that push added costs onto the vendor/suppliers. At the national level these can literally be the end of emerging brands. As costs are often hard to interpret through complex contracts & the nuances of distribution language & jargon.

Located in Middlebury, ACORN Food Hub is an online ordering & delivery service with added support services to expand the sales of local foods. Its "customers" include both the supply & demand sides. As with any distributor, they are working the numbers to service a wide base of businesses.

They purchase products across food categories then sell to retail food stores, schools, institutions. As one of the many hubs assisting in the aggregation products can be sold to a wider area. ACORN provides storage, freight shipping fee-for service, & "cross dock services".

They are building routes heading down Route 7, so, if you are a store or farmstand seeking more Vermont products or a producer seeking to ship, contact ACORN to "see if the numbers will work".

Farmer as Retail

This years' apple crop is strong, the weather has been exceptional for PYO, & our orchards appear to have strong early-season sales.

On the west coast of New England, in May when blossoms were fully opened, a freeze came along thwarting pollination at Shelburne Orchards. Essentially they had no crop to harvest this fall, however they are selling the crop from Forrence Orchard, further south & west in the Champlain Valley. With September banner weekend sales, tractor rides, cider & donuts galore, the orchard decided to wrap up before the long weekend.

There are many other orchards in the west part of the state, including Hackett's up in the Islands, that will be busy this weekend with happy apple folks enjoying the best we have to offer.

The trees are bare but our shelves are full!

Linda Mac, McIntosh, Ruby Mac, Empire, Cortland, Greening, Fuji, Macoun, Gala, and Honeycrisp are stocked up & available on our shelves! Pumpkins are plentiful as well as fresh pressed cider, donuts, slushies, & apple crisp.

Hackett's in SoHero

open 7 days a week 8am-6pm.

Speaking of Pollination

UVM Extension has set out to help us learn more about how our produce comes to be (pun intended).

A series of factsheets spotlights the five bees which are most important to pollination of our fruits or vegetables. This collaboration informs us all about the more than 350 species of wild bees in Vermont. The purpose is to support the adoption of farm & garden practices that promote the well-being of pollinators, through education & applied research with other agencies, organizations & individuals doing similar work. 

Pollinators are essential to the production of many food crops. They also support healthy ecosystems needed for clean air, stable soils, & diverse wildlife. 

Get more UVM info here.

October is a Vibrant Month

Stores & coops are having fun this month.

Across the state & among the aisles, sales are booming for maple syrup on grab & go displays. Cheddar & award-winning cheeses are perfectly complimented by our seasonally appropriate & weekly changing apples. It is a great time to cruise our byways lined with festivities, donuts, cider, cheese, & farmers markets.

Springfield Coop is one of the many stores gathering their community together with an annual member appreciation day, filled with festivities & of course great food & music.

Gatherings have not been limited to stores though. Center for an Agricultural Economy celebrated its 20 years with a town-wide party of food & festivities. In some ways it was like old-home week with past employees showing up to schmooze with newer food advocates from around the state. This included Julian from Pumpkin Village Foods & Lilah from ACORN. The well-organized event was a true celebration of our agricultural economy with 'official’ activities that included a tour of the new Farm Connex distribution complex & the recently opened Cabot retail store.

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!

Cate Hill Farm hosts an Apple Orchard Appalachia Benefit. Monday October 14, 4-6 PM

Old time music, ballad swapping, hot apple cider, & freshly baked apple pie. Proceeds will benefit R.O.A.R. (Rural Organizing and Resilience) a Western North Carolina based grassroots organization in the thick of coordinating & distributing disaster relief for mountain villages affected by Hurricane Helene. Vermonters know first hand the value of helping hands after floods.

Celebrate, But Still Work to Do

Migrant Justice celebrates the seven-year anniversary of the Milk with Dignity Program. On October 3rd, 2017, farmworkers stood side-by-side with the CEO of Ben & Jerry’s Ice Cream to sign the first "Milk with Dignity agreement" & launch this transformational program.

In the seven years since, there have been unprecedented improvements to the living & working conditions of hundreds of farmworkers in Vermont & New York. 

Ervin, a farmworker in the Program, sums it up: “Farms need us. These companies need us. If there weren’t agriculture, there wouldn’t be food. We deserve a dignified living. That’s what everyone deserves.”

Attention NE Food Manufacturers

Are you seeking support to grow your business? Naturally New England has a mentoring program that might be a good fit. It seeks ambitious natural CPG brand founders or senior employees to learn from experienced leaders. You must be able to commit to a 6-month window from January 2 - June 30, 2025. This requires you meet at least once a month with your Mentor & you have reliable internet access for online meetings. For more info or Apply now until October 30th

Maine Center for Entrepreneurs: Meet Up & Product Showcase

October 24 Maine’s emerging food & beverage companies meet with retail/grocery buyers, category managers, & foodservice distributors. The day includes a B2B trade show & awards ceremony, celebrating Maine's iconic & emerging food producers. It is a chance to meet producers, industry buyers, & investors, along with tasting exciting new products. This is one of the many ways we build our regional food economy & meet the goals of 30% regional by 2030.

Details & registration

New England Feeding

New England

In a recently released report from the New England Food Systems Planners Partnership, spending on regionally-sourced products was estimated at $2.28 billion for food & alcohol purchased for at home consumption & $1.45 million for food & alcohol consumed away from home, or 3.1% of total food & alcohol spending in New England.

This project aims to answer the questions around a regional food supply. What do we need to do in the near term, by 2030, to make tangible progress towards this bold goal? How might the increasing & escalating impacts of climate change impact our ability to feed ourselves? If where our food comes from suddenly mattered, would New England be prepared with a reliable, safe, & abundant food supply?

Purchasing local/regional food & beverages supports the communities & ecosystems we live in. Read the state reports & the regional overview recognizing your role in this shift toward a more robust regional food economy.

Looking for Local?



Intervale Food Hub

Provisions International

VT Roots

ACORN Food Hub 

Upper Valley Produce 

Monument Farms 

Food Connects

Lesser Distribution 

Pumpkin Village Foods

Killam Sales

Myers Produce

Wilcox

Marty's Local

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.

Calling All Legislators

As a reader of Small Bites, tell us about your local food constituents. Feed me info on farm, food, or retail stores. Email a pic, a link, a short tale, etc. With your help, we can spread the word of businesses in your jurisdiction. 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. 

Special Thanks: Cate Hill, Pumpkin Village Foods, ACORN, NEFNE, EmpowR

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