Farmer Spotlight: County Line Harvest
In 2000, County Line Harvest began with six acres of farmland on the Sonoma-Marin County line. Today, they have grown to over 30 acres in Northern California and over 100 acres in Southern California, growing produce through the winter season. Certified Organic on both farms, County Line Harvest grows a variety of specialty produce and is rooted in the foundation of good, healthy soil to serve generations to come.
We recently sat down with Angela Brittain, one of Barn2Door’s newest Farm Advisors, to talk about County Line Harvest and get the scoop on how they’ve navigated 2020.
Growing through Covid
“Up until 2020, we were mainly selling to wholesale distributors, high-end restaurants, and at farmer’s markets. When COVID-19 happened, we were hit with the realization that we have fields of food and nowhere to sell. Tech campuses, restaurants, everything just shut down.” At a time when nobody knew what was happening or what the food system would turn into, the owner of County Line Harvest had the idea of starting a CSA program.
“Before COVID, a CSA program was not on our radar because we couldn’t figure out how to connect enough people individually to make it worthwhile.” Within the first week of the pandemic, County Line Harvest was interviewed by a frequent shopper on KCRW, a local news station, to spread the word about the program. At the same time, a local chef offered his restaurant as a space to pass out boxes. After 20 years of County Line’s existence, their very first CSA program was born.
“And just like that, our CSA program blew up. No one was anticipating the local demand. It just kind of evolved into this huge thing.” In the first year of the County Line Harvest CSA program, they have distributed boxes every single week since. “It’s been a journey. But, it felt really good to be able to provide access to healthy food at a time that everything else is so uncertain.”
Convenience has been a tipping point for County Line Harvest’s success. “A lot of people pay for convenience, so we try to make it as easy as possible by simplifying online ordering and our pickups.” The Farm has also simplified its product inventory and packaging. “We have just three sizes of boxes that we offer: a baby box that’s designed for one person, an original box for two to three people, and a family box that can feed four to five people.” Simplifying the options, not allowing customizations, and only offering very specific add-ons enabled County Line Harvest to scale their CSA program rapidly.
After launching the program, the team wanted to understand how they could do better. Soliciting customer feedback, they learned to pivot their CSA model to provide more flexibility. “People aren’t always super ready to commit to 20 or 30 weeks CSA. So, now we offer the option to buy a one-off box if they want to try it for one week. Offering that flexibility for people has helped us retain a lot of business. And then, offering a subscription for the diehard fans that want a box every week.” Pricing was a big part of it, too: “People are losing jobs. We just wanted to make sure that people could still eat and have access to healthy food.”
Serving the Community
County Line Harvest has teamed up with partners across California to help local businesses and take care of underserved communities, reminding us that everyone deserves access to good, healthy food. Customers can purchase donation boxes on behalf of other families. Boxes are distributed throughout several organizations across Los Angeles, supporting the homeless population, people in transition, or families needing support. “We’ve also been able to do some awesome box drives where we fundraise boxes and give them to an organization.”
County Line Harvest also sells CSA boxes directly to local businesses to help propel foot traffic. Teaming up with yoga studios, coffee shops, and tea shops has been an excellent way for County Line to access more customers through a wider reach. “Offering convenience in terms of location has been big because a two-mile drive in Los Angeles can take 30 minutes. We have tried to spread out geographically as much as we can” to include local business pick-up points in as many communities as possible.
Scaling with Barn2Door
“Barn2Door has been a lifesaver. We sought out Barn2Door specifically because of their subscription capabilities, which was something that was really important. We use Barn2Door to track our retail sales, and manage our CSA subscriptions. It has been awesome to log in every week and see how many subscriptions we have accumulated. We can generate a pick-and-pack list by location with the click of a button. All of these things, I now take for granted.”
County Line Harvest also utilizes the Barn2Door + MailChimp Integration to regularly stay in touch with their customers, keeping them updated with pick-up locations, new product launches, and what’s happening on the Farm. “Consistent communication is super helpful. I can now see how much money my newsletter made or how many people opened this email and are looking at this box list. It is so exciting for me.” Angela explained that when their Barn2Door product catalog could sync directly with MailChimp, it was a game-changer: “Mailchimp is so easy. I can replicate my previous newsletter, replace it with relevant content, add new products [from our Barn2Door store], schedule it to send, and then I don’t have to think about it. We now get like a 50% click-through-rate, which is awesome! Keeping it simple has been a great thing for us.”
The Outcome for County Line Harvest
Within one year, County Line Harvest now manages 2,000+ orders each week all in one place with Barn2Door. County Line Harvest has grown its Instagram followers from 1,400 to 12,000+. Through publishing weekly box lists, letting people know which market they will be attending, and leveraging user-generated content (re-posting a photo a follower tagged County Line Harvest in) has contributed to this growth.
Implementing a CSA program was a game-changer for County Line Harvest in 2020. We’re excited to follow Angela and her team in growing their business in 2021. We are delighted and honored to support County Line Harvest in their mission to educate customers about new products and provide local communities with access to healthy organic food.
To learn more about how Barn2Door could support your Farm in growing a local CSA program for your products, watch this 5-min video.
