Community supported agriculture, CSA

I helped a friend with her market garden/CSA for 4 years. We started in June and ended the last day in October, plus we had an additional storage share in November before thanksgiving. On Monday we dropped off at a farmers market. Pro, we were going anyway and killed 2 birds with one stone. Con, CSA customers would be upset when something on the market table that they wanted was not in there share and market customers were frustrated that something that they wanted on the CSA table was not available for sale. Wednesdays we had a pick up at the farm and one member came and worked with us all day and brought several shares to the city where he lived. Since I have left they added a Wednesday delivery to the same “city” where the monday market is. With a Monday and Saturday market Wednesday CSA was nice because it provided a market for crops that ripened mid week. We also had egg and whole chicken shares from our farm.

We choose what they got every week and would sometimes given them some variation (ex. choose 2 winter squash from large bin of mixed varieties) The members that picked up at market would have more choice (ex, 1/2 lb salad, arugula, mixed greens or lettuce mix) and we would sometimes allow substitutions. Members that didn’t pick up at the market had individual pre-boxed shares. Members at the market could purchase extra and farm pickup people were lucky if they saw us. In 2008 she was up to 80 members and dropped to 50 this year. Many people dropped out because they were back CSA members that expected too much and acted like consumers rather than members. This years 50 where the cream of the crop and easy to deal with because they are the folks that love the idea of a young single woman farmer and embrace the ups and downs of seasonal food and being a CSA member.

I also did an apprenticeship at Roxbury Farm (they have a good website). We had 680 members in NY’s Capital District and NYC from June through November with a winter/xmas option. We chose what was in the share and offered a fruit share for 12 weeks from a local IPM farm. We also offered Salsa, Tomato Sauce and Pesto packages that were extra. Members that picked up on the farm u-picked there own high labor crops (strawberries, cherry tomatoes, herbs, flowers, peas, beans, etc). The on farm members also had access to items from other farms through a local food distribution network, non farm items were pre-ordered and pre-paid, we were just a distribution site.

Hope that helps. If you are looking for other ideas, google local harvest and browse what all the different CSAs have to offer.

Charly. We do not run a CSA, but we market a significant amount of cheese through local CSAs as an “add-on”. We approached several CSAs about 10 years ago proposing that their customers would benefit from having the option to receive cheese every week. Since then, the idea has really caught on and it is now routine for CSAs to have meat, eggs, bread, and cheese as options for the members. It works out well for everyone. One stop shopping with local food. In exchange for marketing our cheese, the CSA receives 10% of our gross sales (much lower than selling it wholesale). Most CSAs we deal with get payment up front, but some have payment plans. It seems like the most successful CSAs that we deal with are exclusively CSAs. If you would like to contact me privately I can give you the contact information for several people (with their permission). You can email me at doesleap@myfairpoint.net if you want to pursue this further.

George

@CharlyBonifaz 13537 wrote:

Thanks for giving an idea……
how does the customer get an idea of what CSA is, especially since you said, some were in it with wrong expectations? Advertisement? Word of mouth?

Good Vs. Bad CSA customers
Bad CSA customers are those that treat a local food opportunity like a high end grocer with one on one customer service, and only want certain items. They want to leech your time from regular market sales because they want to argue about how much you owe them because they missed picking up a share. Good customers graciously accept all that you give them and enjoy the challenge of a new to them item. If they don’t want it, than it gets left for the food bank, if they miss a pick up they accept that a needy family ate well for a week. A good CSA customer will humbly ask for a substitution if they have a food allergy, they get it that they are part of the farm and when melons fail they take it in stride and accept that there is a surplus of greens instead.

Advertising and word of mouth are both important. The two farms that I worked on both had websites, this is a great place to send folks for a better idea of what to expect. Some people do contact after finding us on the website, but in the case of the smaller farm that I worked on, it was a better tool to further explain all that you didn’t have time for at the market. We also posted fliers, set out brochures, advertised at the market, went to a UU church to talk about local food, they invited us and turned out to be a great source of customers and a drop off site. Of course in small communities the word of mouth is a great unseen asset, we told folks “If you like our product/CSA program, tell all of your friends, if you have a concern, please let us know we what to be able to address it.”

We plan on starting a CSA in 2011, complete with free range seasonally pastured Dominique egg and meat shares. We plan to get most of our customers through the two markets that we go to and hope to drum up some local on farm pickup interest. We are still not sure how we want to design the share. It is easiest and least wasteful for me to decide and harvest what we want for them, but it is least wasteful for the customers to pick out exactly what they want and will use. One thing that is good about us deciding is that it makes the customers try different foods, but they hate waste and if they throw much out they are not likely to be retained as a customer. As of the moment I think we will keep the shares small so that there is little waste and it is a more affordable price ($300), only have a 20 week season (with possible fall option) and giving them some amount of flexibility with their choices (1/2 share chosen by us, the other 1/2 by them).

Just to share some numbers:
CSA share cost $300
discount given for membership 15%
So they will get at least $345 worth of produce, and most likely more
$345/ 20 weeks is $17.25 a week worth of produce

Members are expected to pick up every week or send a friend or relative.
If we decide what $9 worth of the share will be, than they have a $8.25 credit left toward purchases of their choice with hopes that they will want more than that. So we give them a quart of strawberries ($5), scallions ($1), 2 Kolrabi ($1), and a bunch of salad turnips ($2) then they have the rest to spend on salad mix ($5.25) and a bunch of carrots ($3) or what ever they want that we have on the table. I think that if no one comes to pick up, the $8.25 credit rolls over, but not the $9 of product that I set a side for them, that goes to the food bank.

I would love to hear feedback about my plan, is it something that you think is fair and would be interested in, hypothetically?

In the past the CSA membership agreement has been, that it is the farmers job to try to provide the best quality and variety of product given the forces of weather and nature, and it is the members job to put money up front, show up every week, enjoy and pass the word on. I think some CSAs tell you that a share will feed so many people and such, but I want ours to be a good taste of the harvest and if the member needs to buy more for the week they can choose between the farmers market or a less local and more global alternative. It is not fair to expect everyone to be able to afford all local, so I’d like to think that this less costly taste of local could be a good alternative for those that can’t have it all.

Erika