The Covid-19 pandemic showed us how things could, or had to, be different. Sometimes for the better, sometimes for the worse. We discovered that, yes, that meeting really can be just an email. Or maybe it was suddenly time to make that change we’ve put off again and again.
The same is true for small farms in Michiana, many of which suddenly found themselves without a way to get their produce—already planned out and paid for—to customers, whether it was an in-person visitor to a weekend farm stand or a restaurant kitchen that was shuttered during the lockdown.
Characteristic of the can-do, improvisational spirit that farming demands, local farmers found ways to keep their livelihoods from taking a catastrophic hit.
“Last year, when everything got shut down, half our sales were restaurants and the other half were weekend market sales,” says Susan Greutman, who owns Sunchoke Farms in South Bend, Indiana, with her husband, Ryan. Sunchoke is an urban farm; the Greutmans grow their produce on three lots on the northwest side of South Bend. Customer traffic at local outlets, such as the South Bend Farmers Market and Portage Farm Stands, was key. But when the pandemic hit, perceptions became as problematic as the realities.
With people unsure about what was open and what was closed, Susan says the farm ended up in a tough position and they needed a solution fast: “We immediately made the shift to online sales.”
That short-term boost helped a little, Susan says, but as the season went on and things opened up a bit, she found Sunchoke’s customers weren’t ordering online as much, despite a number of subscriptions to Sunchoke’s email newsletter, among other things.
“What we discovered is a lot of people really care about local food, and they want to know the farmer,” she says. So while online ordering was good for Sunchoke in a pinch, Susan says that in the long run it didn’t replace face-to-face contact, which her customers enjoy and have come back for in the past year (so much so that Sunchoke eventually dropped the online store). Sunchoke also maintained its community-supported agriculture (CSA) program, which remains popular with subscribers.
Plans for an online store also were accelerated for Hole in the Woods Farm in Culver, Indiana, which is owned and operated by Chad Gard and Xenia Czifrik. Initially, they had created an online form to collect orders for the entire Culver Farmers Market, which Gard manages. That proved to be incredibly time consuming, until Gard happened across Local Line, a company that not only offered an online storefront for farmers but also for markets. So, the online plans originally slated for fall of 2020 were implemented for the whole market in the spring.
Customers responded well, Gard says, because preordering allows them first dibs on that week’s produce, and also makes meal planning for the week easier.
Another big hit for Hole in the Woods was delivery. The farm offers home delivery in Marshall, Starke, Fulton and Pulaski counties, as well as Warsaw and Mentone. St. Joseph County customers can pick up orders (or just shop) at the Mishawaka Farmers Market on Sundays.
“I really like doing the home delivery because it gets us access to some people who can’t get to the markets,” Gard says. “It was good during the shutdown because it was contactless.” It also saves on costs because delivery orders require less packaging than food offered at a public market. And since Gard and Czifrik harvest to order, the produce is usually picked just hours before it’s delivered. It’s not unusual for delivery customers to receive loaves of bread still warm from the oven and salad greens still cold from the walk-in cooler, which can turn a weekly grocery delivery into an experience of its own.
Experiences are a major part of the raison d’être at Verdant Hollow Farms in Buchanan, Michigan. But when the pandemic hit, those experiences had to be paused.
Verdant Hollow stopped hosting visitors for its tours and workshops, according to farm manager Molly Muchow. The farm also opened an online store.
Customers could order ahead and pickup could be contactless, even with meat and eggs, thanks to a refrigerator they could stock with orders. Deliveries were also part of the calculus for serving customers during the shutdown. “We had to figure out how to make people comfortable,” she says.
Verdant Hollow found its way, thanks in part to its mission of restoring and stewarding its 225 acres of vegetable gardens, animal pastures and enclosures, and pine and walnut forests. The farm also continued its work toward Certified Organic status, which it received this year, Muchow says.
The company Verdant Hollow found for its online presence, Barn 2 Door, tailors its products to farms, offering website hosting as well as an online store, while making it easy for Muchow to make adjustments to both quickly.
When it came to deliveries, Muchow said that they added more drop sites so more customers could get Verdant Hollow’s products without having to travel to the farm. This was especially helpful with meat, as she wants it to be as fresh as possible and so does not bring it to markets.
“I’m not too crazy about bringing a cooler of frozen meat and sitting there on a 90-degree day and then bringing it back home and putting it in my freezer,” she says.
Verdant Hollow maintains a flower CSA program thanks to the farm’s resident grower Heather Smith. The CSA is supplemented with add-ons from the farm, including meat, eggs and produce. That turned out to be one of the advantages Verdant Hollow had, Muchow says.
Other partnerships have also been successful. Verdant Hollow offers Red Arrow Roasters coffee, and a solid customer base opened up through the farm’s partnership with Purple Porch Co-op in South Bend. All of this adds up to something closer to the variety of the grocery store, but with local products.
For all of these farms, this season has been about making up for lost time.
“I feel like we’re kind of catching up,” Muchow says.
824 Lindsey St.
South Bend, IN
574.367.0050
sunchokefarms.com
6738 E 750 N
Culver, IN
833.574.3663
holeinthewoodsfarm.com
11907 Garr Rd.
Buchanan, MI
773.882.4431
verdanthollowfarms.com
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