Slice of the market
Penns Corner, Tuscarora co-ops
target growing restaurant trade
By Stephen A.Thompson
Assistant Editor
any mainstream farmers see organic growers as little
more than hobbyists, depending on ladybugs, manure
and luck to grow crops. But successful organic producers
make their own luck. They are coming into
their own by using innovative agricultural techniques
to protect their crops while also developing their business skills.
Many are finding small, but profitable, niches by growing high-quality
crops and catering to restaurant chefs and other customers who
demand the best.
Pennsylvania is home to a growing number of such farmers who
have joined forces to make their operations work with the help of
niche-marketing cooperatives. The Tuscarora Organic Growers
Cooperative, based in Hustontown, sells mainly in the Baltimore-
Washington area to restaurants and some small high-end retail outlets.
Growing for markets in the Pittsburgh area are the members of
Penns Corner Farm Alliance, a co-op that does not exclusively sell
organic produce, but which shares Tuscarora’s commitment to highquality
products and sustainable agriculture.
Harvesting coordination crucial to co-op success
Tuscarora Organic Growers Cooperative was organized in 1988,
when Jim Crawford, the owner of an organic operation called New
Morning Farm, decided to spin off his produce wholesaling business,
and to build new markets for his crops and those of his neighbor
organic producers.
In the beginning, members had little idea how to make the operation
work. The cooperative puttered along for a few years, selling “a
few cases of this and that,” says Tony Ricci, sales and marketing
manager. What was needed was a comprehensive marketing and
organization plan. They got it when they hired Chris Fullerton as
general manager. Fullerton’s efforts turned the co-op into a professional
organization with a constantly-growing customer base and
sales.
The heart of the operation is a system under which each of the 17
member farms commits to supplying a certain amount of a given
crop at a given time. During the winter, Fullerton talks with each
farmer; together they draw a plan based on the producer’s past
record, preferences, projected demand, etc. A grower’s commitment
may include new crops, and it may make up only a portion of his
projected output, since each member is free to sell produce through
other channels.
Growers’ commitments
are loaded into a
computer relational
database, which every
week generates a list of the crops
expected from each grower. “We had
to get the database developed especially
for co-op,” says Ricci. “Nobody
offered a database system that did what
we needed.” Off-the-shelf systems
were centered on keeping track of
available produce, but didn’t keep track
of individual growers.
The custom-built database was put
into service 10 years ago, but was
given an overhaul beginning in 2002,
using lessons learned in the interim.
The revamped system was inaugurated
the following year. The new database
has turned what used to be a
headache into easy work. “We used to
do everything using spreadsheets,”
Ricci says.
Once commitments are entered into
the system, they are not carved in
stone. The co-op keeps in constant
touch with members, and figures are
updated as necessary.
“We have to be flexible,” says Ricci,
“so we can deal with changes in the
market and with our own changing
conditions.” If the co-op is unable to
sell all of the committed produce, the
loss is split evenly among the growers.
Quality, reliability
are co-op’s lifeblood
The ability to present customers
each week with a list of available products
is a big advantage. Another is the
high quality of the co-op’s produce.
“We sell quality, not quantity,” Ricci
says.
The co-op’s focus on building close,
one-on-one relationships with its customers
is another strong point. As the
person in charge of marketing, Ricci
spends much of his time cultivating his
relationships with chefs and other
buyers.
Part of building those relationships
is providing what they ask for, even if
the co-op doesn’t currently have it. “If
we don’t have what they want, we get
it from somebody else,” says Ricci.
The decision to keep the co-op
open all year has also been key in
maintaining its customer base, says
Ricci. “Staying open means we keep
the trucks running, and our customers
loyal.”
The problem is what to sell during
the lean winter months. Winter root
crops take up some of the slack, and
some of the members have greenhouses.
The co-op also sells mushrooms
from a Pennsylvania grower, citrus
fruits from Florida and even organic
olive oil.
The ultimate goal is to run the coop
in the black in the winter — a goal
that remains unmet. But last winter’s
figures were conspicuously better than
those of the winter before, with sales
higher every week — and one week
showing an increase of 40 percent over
the same week a year before.
Along with the professionally-run
marketing operation, the growers use
the latest in certified organic pest- and
disease-control methods. “People don’t
know it,” says Ricci, “But organic
farming is one of the most innovative
sectors of agriculture. There are new
products coming out all the time.”
The secret to successful organic
farming, according to Ricci, is to
maintain a proper environment in the
fields, and to not depend on “quick
fixes.” Instead, he says, organic farmers
monitor the conditions of their fields
and attempt to keep things in balance.
When problems do occur, there are
products available, such as a hydrogen
peroxide mixture, that control bacteria
and fungus while still meeting organic
standards.
“A lot of people think we just howl
at the moon and hope for the best,”
Ricci chuckles. “But we just use different
tools.”
Ricci believes that operations like
Tuscarora can offer desirable alternatives
for farmers who today find themselves
caught in the price-cost squeeze
endemic to mainstream farming.
“There are too few options for farmers
due to all the consolidation and centralization,”
he says. “We don’t depend
on government guiding the market; we
take the risks ourselves.”
So far, the approach seems to be
working.
Penns Corner co-op
pleases choosy chefs
About 70 miles to the north, the
members of Penns Corner Farm
Alliance are using a similar approach.
Penns Corner was founded after current
president Pam Bryan and other
produce farmers in the State College,
Pa., area attended a meeting held by
the Pennsylvania Association for
Sustainable Agriculture (PASA) to discuss
a proposed local farmers market.
The upshot of the meeting was that
such a market would be about five
years away. Bryan and her friends were
disappointed. “We wanted to sell
things now,” she remembers.
They found start-up funding from
PASA, but with a catch. PASA would
not fund a purely organic organization.
The result was that, while most of the
cooperative’s members are certified as
organic, the co-op is open to other
farmers that practice sustainable agriculture.
After the co-op’s launch in 1999, the
next step was pure serendipity. At a
PASA meeting, Bryan met the executive
chef for a large Pittsburgh restau-
rant chain called (The Big Burrito.).
Bill Fuller was looking for a source of
high-quality fresh produce. Trained in
California, Fuller had returned to his
home state only to run into trouble
trying to find good-quality vegetables
for his dishes. It was a match made in
heaven.
Fuller, says Bryan, “took us by the
hand.” He suggested crops to grow,
and offered business advice. They also
received technical assistance from the
Keystone Development Center — a
cooperative development service,
which, among other things, paid for
Tuscarora’s manager, Chris Fullerton,
to come out and talk about his co-op’s
marketing database system.
The co-op offers an interesting
variety of produce in addition to the
familiar vegetable staples. Edible flowers
are produced by one operation,
including nasturtiums and squash blossoms.
Bryan sells young whole plants
called “micro-greens” and “demigreens.”
Growing and packaging the
tiny plants is labor intensive she says,
but customers pay a premium for these
top-quality additions to salads and
other dishes.
Customers request new crops
Other items sold by the co-op
include free-range eggs, turkeys, grassfed
lamb, honey, blueberries, asparagus,
and even pasta and tofu, which
along with mushrooms are supplied by
outside sources. Some of the crops
were originally unfamiliar to co-op
members when asked for by customers.
Others were all too familiar. “We
found that people were asking for
things we thought of as weeds,” Bryan
says. Those edible “weeds” include
chickweed, lambs quarters and stinging
nettles.
About six years after its founding,
the cooperative has 14 members located
in nine counties surrounding
Pittsburgh. The co-op’s customers are
a little more varied than Tuscarora’s.
They include about 19 restaurants and
other establishments — some of them
members of the “slow food” movement
— and the Pittsburgh Food Bank.
But the co-op also sells through a
kind of “produce basket of the week
club.” Part of a nation-wide movement
called Community Supported
Agriculture (CSA), the program allows
individuals to buy subscriptions to four
or eight weekly deliveries of fresh produce,
usually beginning in June. Other
sales venues include a farmers market
in College Station, begun when a
friend of the co-op invited members to
use the parking lot of building he
owned, and local country
and golf clubs.
Like the Tuscarora
co-op, Penns Corner stays
open in winter, and for the
same reason. “We originally
wanted to close during
the winter, but Big Burrito
convinced us that staying
open would help us keep
customers,” says Bryan.
Some members sell most of
their produce through the
co-op; others use it mainly
as a backup when they’re
unable to sell their entire
output to regular customers
or other venues.
Bryan believes that
future growth will come
mainly from CSA subscriptions.
“We can drop off a
lot of boxes at one point,
she says, “and if we have a
crop failure — say, due to
deer — we can substitute
another crop.” The main
problems with the program,
she says, are the
logistics of putting the
boxes together and keeping everything
refrigerated until delivery.
Things are going well enough that
Penns Corner recently hired a fulltime
manager, with an eye to expanding
sales. “If we can sell all we grow,”
she says, “we can double our sales.”
