Small Bites
October 24, 2022
Making a difference by creating opportunities to promote & sell more VT products to more buyers in the northeast & beyond
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Whew! What a rush this month has been!
Stores are reporting banner sales of Vermont products. Every corner of the state had spectacular foliage & an abundance of people coming to share our glory. Thank goodness for our beautiful trees, our woodlot managers, our farmers & everyone who welcomes travelers into their businesses.
Speaking of trees & woodlots, our state wouldn't be the same without the commitment to land management & shared resources among public agencies, private landowners & businesses. Though often overlooked in their role, we have a wood-products industry built upon creating viable forests through sustainable practices. This includes the wood-based businesses that intersect with our food through the manufacturing of pallets, crates, gaylord bins for farm use, as well as wood packaging materials & paper products.
Many of the trees that are cut & sent to regional pulp paper mills from Vermont were cut as part of a forest management plan to improve forest health. Landowners work with a licensed forester to decide what silvicultural prescription is needed in their woodlot depending on their goals (i.e. wildlife habitat improvement, timber, climate resiliency, etc.) In Vermont, specifically, landowners enrolled in Current Use are required to have a forest management plan written by a licensed forester & approved by the Department of Forests, Parks & Recreation. Often, these woodlots are not in great condition due to past land use practices & a lack of forest management.
Read on for info on our Vermont food, wood products, producers, distributors & stores working to move the needle on local & regional partnerships to drive sales.
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Easy to Shop: Custom Crates
Everywhere we look this time of year, wooden boxes are our jam. Stores share their bountiful apple & squash selections in easy to shop displays. Gaylords are large open wooden bins used at larger stores & farmstands that allow them to feature the abundance of fall crops.
Clifford Lumber in Starksboro is a fourth-generation wood products business working sourcing local white pine for their crates. They carry stock items including bushel & half bushel crates while also creating custom crates for food, beverage & gift companies.
When stores reset displays for fall crops, it is standard practice to present fresh, clean crates for display & utilizing aged ones in the back room or as a dummy prop. Presentation of product in new crates is appealing to shoppers. Stores & food businesses can order custom crates of any dimension that tie into company branding. Clifford Lumber is one of many Vermont wood products businesses that intersects with farms & stores. All their waste products—sawdust, shavings, and bark—are sold to local individuals for use with livestock, landscaping & other agricultural pursuits.
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BIG NEWS!
Vermont Fresh Pasta makers of premium pasta, ravioli & sauces in Proctorsville has been going strong for 30 years. The company has learned ALL the ins & outs of growing operations & figuring out distribution that worked for them. They have always had a commitment to building relationships with their customers, utilizing local businesses for service & other needs, while also sourcing local ingredients. That is a model VT business!
Tricia & Ken have decided it is time for a little fun & frolic with time for themselves beyond the business. After careful consideration to maintain the brand they cultivated, the company has sold. The company which is still growing is poised to continue the mission, ethos, & legacy for another 30 years. We wish the best transition for all parties!
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More Big News,
perfect for the season
In August, Fat Toad goat milk caramel sold to Claire's Butterfly Bakery. Claire is excited to offer this brand to their operations which includes award winning hot sauces.
Fat Toad is a brand that grew from the small goat farm up to national distribution with sales at several large chain stores. Who knew that they would grow farmers market sales to become a niche brand with buyers across the country seeking them out.
Sales are strong in the specialty category & with the marketing experience, scale of production, & wide range of skills in place with the merging of the two businesses, it looks to be a strong move to further develop Fat Toad.
There are many dynamics in growing a brand that can range from impacts on cash flow to uncertain production demands. Read the informative article on the melding of these two businesses & what it took to grow. Congratulations to both Fat Toad & Claire's Butterfly for making the match.
“Our two companies also share so many values in terms of clean & local sourcing of ingredients, supporting the local economy, & creating a
working environment that helps meet the needs of
local people.”
-Calley Irving of Fat Toad
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Stores are lining up Thanksgiving pre-orders of Vermont turkey, pies, side dishes, breads & more. Across the state store buying & marketing teams are at the ready for a super busy season of family gatherings. Many stores have this down to a sweet science with pre-orders, prepayments, pick up times & concierge services in place. Stores in the mountain towns near ski areas do a fabulous job with the pre-made dishes so folks can hit the slopes & still have a lovely “almost-homemade” meal. (A little early season ski optimism here!)
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Food Service: Easy Meals for
Busy Days
Farms are loaded with storage crops. Vermont made wooden crates & field bins are filled & being shipped up to Hardwick for minimal processing.
The Just Cut program is a project of the Center for an Agricultural Economy providing products for food service & meal prep. The wide selection of produce will save labor at store cafes & ready to eat meals. Produce for processing is grown in Vermont & New Hampshire. Each year new farms are added, & this year Clearfield Farm in Granville has products picked up & delivered to Hardwick by Farm Connex. Edgewater Farm with fields in both NH & VT are also new this year providing fresh produce for Just Cut. There were more blueberries this year thanks to Sweet Roots Farm in Charlotte. Stores are encouraged to utilize the food service pack sizes for hearty winter meals available through Farm Connex.
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In-store signage can become "wallpaper". What this means is that it is there but not really seen. At the Brattleboro Coop, matching a display with the timed promotion required a little more than a "wallpaper" approach. By all accounts, shoppers paid attention to
the sign & did not break open cases or poach from the display. If they did,
the prices would not have matched at the register. One of the many quandaries of retailing & promotions is customer behavior. Buyers have much to juggle including the appropriate language to deter shopping until ready to launch.
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Pro Tip: For Food Manufacturers
Store buyers are busy people. The daily juggling act is much more than "just buying products". There are tons of back-room details to maintain; it is a job with plenty of stress to meet overall margin & sales goals.
Here's a tip for food manufacturers seeking to gain access to new accounts: Use your website as a steppingstone for basic info that can help a buyer. Consider including a wholesale tab where basic info on pack sizes, distribution options, POP info can be a one stop introduction to your brand. Pictures are super helpful as are product packaging measurement specs. This can guide a buyer with the visual branding & pack sizes thereby helping them better gauge how to shelve your product. This information can easily be linked helping you gain visibility.
Information can be presented in many ways, ultimately you want to know you are making it as easy as you can to provide some basics. When you follow up with buyers, some of their questions will already have been answered.
Review these businesses & evaluate their strengths & give ideas about your website to meet buyer needs. Vermont Fresh Pasta helps buyers with Foodservice, Retail & Where to Buy tabs. True North Granola & Nothin' But Curd also have wholesale pages to help encourage sales. Moska Farm has wholesale distribution for their plant-based line of farm-made products (including their fabulous eggrolls!). Clearfield Farm has a wholesale tab too to help establish produce sales with buyers. These examples help to provide introductory information for buyers.
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Bakery in Saxon's River is underway. This of course impacts sales
& bakery merchandising at stores. Brattleboro Coop eagerly awaits the
return of the exceptional breads & other baked goods. A unique aspect of Grandview is the weekly pick up of CSB
(community supported bread). Everyone is excited for the renovations & will be ready to enjoy fresh bread again in early December.
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Producer Buyer Forum Update!
Paraphrasing the words of Tom Petty, "you got lucky when I found you". That's how it was at Vermont Tech & the Judd Gym when it became clear there was too much interest in the November 2nd Producer Buyer Forum to hold at the original location we sighted.
We have moved to the larger, more commodious Judd Gym which allows us to draw down our waiting list! There is clearly interest in our gathering of farmers, food manufacturers, distributors & store buyers. We have a handful of spots for store buyers; if you wish to join drop an email to [email protected]
If you are registered already, please note the new location is Judd Gym on center campus at VT Tech in Randolph. This year after two long years on pause & with the new location, the Forum should be fantastic! “We got lucky babe!”
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Bad News or Good News?
A major story hit the big screen this week. In a world of consolidation, it doesn't get more impacting than this. Two of the largest US food retailers Kroger & Albertson's- seek to merge rather than fight each other for downward pricing & compete for market share. Instead, they get to play the wizard that bullies food manufacturers in an endless catastrophe of pressure to perform with little or no safety nets & further decay of anything that resembles competition. If the merger is approved by SEC, Kroger & Albertsons would control nearly 20% of grocery sales in the U.S. That’s on par with Walmart, whose power in food retailing has done widespread damage to communities, farmers, food workers & local grocers. However, if you happen to be a Kroger shareholder, things might be very bright. Read more about it here.
“A merger of the nation’s top two grocery chains should raise serious questions about a single supermarket giant gaining unprecedented dominance over the nation’s food supply chain. A merger would not only put smaller competitors at an unfair disadvantage, but also increase anticompetitive buyer power over grocery suppliers, which ultimately would harm consumers. It is our expectation that this deal will receive rigorous scrutiny from federal antitrust enforcers.”
-Greg Ferrara, National Grocers Association
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Orchard Season
Allenholm Farm in South Hero, up in the Islands of Vermont, has been in the family over 150 years. For seven generations the family has continued to work together through all the changes. One thing remains the same, the love of the land, the craftsmanship of bringing fruit to market, the support of the Vermont wood products industry, & the relationships built over time from wholesale to retail sales.
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Brisk Sales
Farmstands have reported fabulous sales this October. Foote Brook Farm in Johnson had all the right products to meet the desires of locals & travelers. First-time visitors to Vermont love the "farm experience". The fall colors at the farmstands are as gorgeous as the fall foliage. The farm helps shoppers make decisions with helpful signs with varietal & cooking information for all the squash. FBF is also a large-scale wholesale produce grower & a member of the Deep Root Organic Coop.
Handcrafted products that speak to the traveler include Chubby Chicks Preserves & Jams made in Cambridge, VT. The farmstand has a huge selection of their fabulous preserves including plum jalapeno that is so good with Moska Farm eggrolls!
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It may be apple, donut, squash & gourd season but at Sweet Hill Farm in the Champlain Valley, it was still corn season up to last week!
And right now, it is becoming Vermont Cranberry season. "Cranberry Bob" is busy lining up staff for the pick & pack that is a quintessential harbinger of Thanksgiving sales, followed by winter. The cranberries grown in Fletcher will be shipped throughout Vermont through Pumpkin Village Foods & other distributors.
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1000 Stone Farm in Brookfield carries a nice range of products in their store. This small super rural farmstand has some of the state's finest food for sale. A self-checkout makes it easy to shop & for them to manage inventory.
The farm is a 4-season certified organic, & Real Organic Project homestead that is providing the community with food year-around at a cost that is realistic for the consumer, supportive of the farmer, & the farm while also being good to the land. Located in the rocky rolling hills of Brookfield, they are producers of a fabulous line of organic mushrooms along with a whole array of produce.
Notice how the farm store uses locally crafted wooden crates for display of the Real Organic Project certified Hillside Botanicals hemp products, herbs & medicinals. For those attending the Forum on November 2nd, this farm store is a short drive away & well worth the stop.
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This sign from VT Farm to School Network has become ubiquitous at farms across Vermont. Above Foote Brook Farm; Below Liberty Orchard in Brookfield
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Time Sensitive: Farmer Grants
The Vermont Agency of Agriculture, Food & Markets has grant funds to help organizations purchase & distribute local food to underserved communities. It will help connect farmers & food producers who may be interested in selling food to participating organizations.
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Reminder: Holiday Shipping
Rates are on the Rise
Price hikes are in the works at FedEx, UPS & USPS. With the crush of online sales shipping is getting more costly with big changes at FedEx . Starting in January 2023 ground & freight fee increase along with other changes. Meanwhile, UPS has begun price increases with new surcharges in effect until Jan. 14, 2023. They are also raising per-package additional handling (from $3.50 to$6.50), large packages ($40 to $70) & packages more than its maximum shipping limits (no charge to $400) on qualifying customers.
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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: cranberries courtesy of City Market
All info is subject to change; thank you to all who contributed to this issue!
(Special shout out to Christine Dorsey McGowan)
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