A Booming Berry Business - Angelica of Hayton Farms Berries
In this episode of the Direct Farm Podcast, we're delighted to welcome back Angelica Hayton of Hayton Farms Berries. As a fifth-generation family Farmer, she has built out her business selling direct and developed a strong Farm brand across the Western Washington region. Listen as Angelica shares her experience, struggles, and success with selling direct from the last year.
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Rory: 0:26
Welcome to the Direct Farm Podcast. I'm Rory, your host. We've got a great conversation for you today with one of our farm advisors, Angelica Hayton of Hayton Farm's Berries. Welcome Angelica. It's great to have you back for another interview after about a year. Before we get too far into things, could you maybe tell us a little bit about your farm and its history in Western Washington?
Angelica: 0:45
Yeah, my name's Angelica with Hayton Farm's Berries. I'm the fifth generation in my family farm. My dad is also still farming. We're located in the Skagit Valley on Fir Island, which is near Mount Vernon and Conway. I grew up on my parent's farm. I always knew that's what I wanted to do. I specialize in growing different types of organic berries, so our main ones are the organic berries and transitional berries. Certified transitional by the WSDA. It means that it's being grown organically for over 12 months, but under 36 months. So for us, if we're selling something at a farmer's market, as certified transitional, it just means it's like a a new project for us that we've had in for over a year. It's been inspected by the WSDA and it's on its way to being certified organic. And then a lot of our older projects are already certified organic. We have A lot of different varieties of strawberry, raspberry, blueberry, blackberry, and we plant a lot of different varieties of every type of berry to try and extend our season so we can start berries mid to end of May. And then depending on the weather we can harvest and sell fresh fruit sometimes even to like Halloween. That's our main business, like our core business. We also raise beef, lamb, and chickens for eggs which we've raised those things for a while, but more like for personal use or just selling custom to clients that would want to buy a quarter of a cow. This past winter due to like last year's markets, not being that great because of COVID. Last year was the first year we tried doing year-round markets and doing mainly just U-District, and Ballard. So one Saturday market one Sunday market. So we made it all year round, which was fun. We had a good time. It went well considering it was a COVID year, weird time to start winter markets. But it went really well. But that spring of 2020 when we started thinking we were going to want to do year-round markets, we got more chickens. And so now we have like 130 chickens, which doesn't produce that many eggs, but it was it's enough to like just to go to one Saturday, one Sunday market, give us like another variety to add to our table. And very popular people like the eggs so it does help bring people to the table. We, it was our first year freezing berries. I had bought like a shipping container freezer, like five years ago. This idea of a wanting to do your own markets for a really long time, but never actually doing it. And so then once again, with COVID last year in sales and shopper counts, being down at farmer's markets it was kind of the little push, I needed to get this freezer hooked up and working and try the year around markets. I could tell it wasn't going to be the best sales year. And so having an income just stop when fresh berries did it had in the past, I was like, 'oh yeah, okay. We need to get something else going for the year round markets.' It all worked out really well, this year we've been freezing like as the season went along, we have, so we have frozen raspberries, strawberries, blueberries, blackberries. So when the fresh berries start and we continue at the markets, we'll have a little bit more variety, which will help. And we're also gonna have some lamb this fall and winter. And so. Yeah, it's been fun to not just disappear at the farmer's markets for half the year. It's kind of nice that we can kind of maintain a presence. People won't just forget about us.
Rory: 4:27
I mean, that's a lot of different products. It's great to hear how you guys are diversifying that and in doing so extending the season in which you can bring in revenue. I'm kind of curious. I think organic is a term that a lot of shoppers and buyers are pretty familiar with at this point. But you also mentioned like transitional berries or grass fed beef and lamb your eggs or free range. Could you maybe talk about how you kind of go about explaining or marketing to buyers, the benefits of those practices that you guys are doing? Because they definitely separate your products from stuff you can find at the store. But I think sometimes there's a disconnect between buyers and the farmer in terms of buyers realizing what the benefit of that in their food is. So how have you guys kind of gone about messaging that to customers.
Angelica: 5:08
I'd say yeah a lot of people at the farmer's market, definitely know what organic is and they want that. A lot of people think that if you're certified organic, they'll say, oh, you're organic, no spray. And I'm like, well, we still spray, but just different sprays than someone that's growing conventional. There are a lot of approved sprays and fertilizers that you can use and people do with certified organic operations. But people, I think, especially with berries are, do really want certified organic or transitional. They're known for being on like the dirty dozen or produce that you should seek out organic. So people are always really happy when they see that, I'd say when we first started having certified transitional products, people were really confused about what that meant, but I feel like over the years more and more people kind of know what it is. But like I said, for people that don't know what it is, it just means it's being grown organic. It's been over 12 months, but under 36 months, cause it takes in Washington three years to get it. And then as far as our other products go our cows are all like out on a large pasture at my house where I live. We make our own hay, so then in the winter, we'll supplement with hay and the like round bales, like haylage, they're like wrapped in a plastic and it ferments. And so yeah, the cows that we raise are very happy, have a very good life. And yeah. And then your exam, like our sheep are all in the same pasture is out there and also just get the hay that we make ourselves and our chickens have a really big pasture to roam around in. And I, Yeah. I think people at the farmer's markets, yeah. It's important to them to know where their food's coming from. As far as the animals and the chickens and the eggs same thing, they want to know that it's coming from a farm That's treating the animals. Good and care about the environment.
Rory: 7:12
So it's been about a year since you were on the podcast. Could you maybe talk about how the last year has been for your farm and maybe some of the challenges that you guys have faced, but also how you've dealt with those and maybe some areas of growth?
Angelica: 7:25
Yeah. So in the last year I mean farmer's markets this season have definitely gone a lot better for us than last year in 2020. You know, it seemed like a lot of people had been vaccinated and the shopper counts were way up at the farmer's market. Sales were way up even before July 1st, but it seemed like it was good timing for a kind of, even our busier part of our season starting. I felt like everyone was so excited to get out and about. And the farmer's markets are such a safe place, especially cause they're outside versus being like an indoor grocery store. Yeah, I mean, things have been way better than last summer, and just overall even comparing it to 2019. Sales, seems like shopper count and everything did better. You know, last year I was scrambling in the spring to have an online presence and do pre-orders and deliveries and luckily, found Barn2Door and was trying to get it set up over the next few weeks during my busy season and kind of trying to learn it and figure it all out, I did. And it was great last year when we really needed it. But it was really fun to start this year, having everything already set up and in place. There's definitely things like new things I still want to learn. But it was awesome just having the online store already set up. People were less scared to leave their house and come to the markets. People loved being able to pre-order because maybe we don't have a lot of a certain product a certain berry and people loved that they could pre-order and even if they're not going to get to the market, right when it opens, they know we're going to set it aside. Before I was hooked up with you guys, at Barn2Door, the logistics of that were just impossible for me. Same thing with the delivery route, which yes, I started a little bit later in the season last year and it was a huge hit and I loved it. Customers really liked being able to do the subscriptions. We do a mixed Berry half flat 5 week subscription. So we got that going and it was fun to have that all set up right away. We do like two delivery days a week, Tuesday and Friday, which are nice because they're slower market days for us. And so it consistently, like all season have been full, like a lot of times on Tuesdays and Fridays, I'd actually have to send two trucks because there's so many stops and it's been really great. And I would say all the restaurants that are doing more like larger orders and cafes bakeries. Everyone really likes the site and it's easy to use for them too. I was kind of worried that long-term customers that were used to just like texting me or emailing me and then I'd invoice them. I was trying to get everyone streamlined onto using Barn2Door because then I don't have to worry about, organizing if I've received payment on things and making up an invoice for someone it's just like automatic and keeps everything organized, but everyone loves it. And it was, seemed like it was very easy to use for all these different, like small businesses, cafes, restaurants, and homeowners. It definitely just streamlined everything from me. I think now I have everyone using it, which is. So nice not to have to be worried about, oh, did I forget about a text message order or someone that found me on Instagram and wanting to put on an order? Anytime someone reaches out to me, I can just be like, oh, here's the link to the store. Like we deliver Tuesday, Friday, and so that has helped me just stay more organized and it takes a lot of things off of my plate. It's like a huge relief and yeah, it was fun to just start the season with that all in place. Definitely recommend it.
Rory: 10:59
So you talked about how many farmer's markets you guys attended, it's just about 50, I believe. Is that correct?
Angelica: 11:04
Yeah.
Rory: 11:05
Could you maybe talk about how you guys have been able to leverage being at that many farmer's markets? Not only just as a revenue source when you're making sales at those markets, but also as kind of a marketing opportunity?
Angelica: 11:16
Yeah. Um, I started when I was 15 with my sisters, before I could even drive. It used to be like U district and Pike Place and Ballard. And there was like a few markets and then they just started popping up everywhere. And I would just, just like, okay, I'm just going to keep applying and I'd add every year, I'd kind of add 5 or 10. Till we got to where we are now. So it wasn't like it happened all in one year. I think that's why it was doable. I mean, it seems kind of crazy right now. Because even when I'm only doing one on Saturday and one on Sunday, it's still seems like a hustle in the morning to get up to the market on time. But like when we're in our really busy season and I have a lot of help and we kind of built up to this over time gradually. But it is kind of crazy. We definitely kind of try and keep our display the same everywhere we go with the same tablecloths and the same signs and the same set up. So people can recognize us, know who we are. I would say people definitely think of us when they think of like berries in Western Washington, especially if they go to the farmer's markets. And yeah, it's been fun to have, like a better online presence. So it's been good.
Rory: 12:26
I mean, there's no way you can attend every farmer's market, you guys are pretty dang close though, but it's definitely nice to have the online presence too, to direct people, especially if their schedule doesn't line up with one of the times that you're at a farmer's market. So something that you guys talked about last time you were on the podcast and I've been really eager to talk to you about is the pink lemonade blueberries. I think that was your first season that you were actually going to be selling them. But it's something you guys have done. That's really cool with those is I feel like you've kind of leveraged this scarcity around them is that you don't grow a ton. And so when, when you guys do have them, it's kind of a big deal and customers are really craving for them. So could you maybe talk about your messaging around that product and how you've been able to kind of drive your overall revenue by promoting this one kind of scarce product?
Angelica: 13:10
So last year was our first year we're picking like a very small amount. And I would just put like a post on Instagram and it seemed like people. We're really excited about it. Cause they had never seen it or never tasted it. And the color is pretty wild. I figured out last year, like, wow people really liked this. Way more than all these other posts I'm doing and then this year the yield was a little bit better. So when we pitched it, a lot of people have been asking about it since last year. And so I made sure to do a lot of posts about it and we didn't really have enough to send them just out to all the markets. So I mainly just made it a thing like, okay, we're going to have them this weekend, Thursday through Sunday. They're only going to get the farm stand and it was crazy people were driving up from Seattle, like an hour north. They would show up at the stand and be like, we're here for the pink berries and it crazy. It was really fun. I mean, blueberries take a while to get up and running, but it's definitely something I want to have more of, it seems like a novelty that people are really excited about.
Rory: 14:18
Yeah, that's, that's awesome to hear, great to hear that people are willing to travel just to get them. But I think in terms of as a strategy, It's really cool, but I think it translates to other things too. For example, bacon could be that product for a pork farmer or maybe, you know, they, if you're doing beef, they come to buy the steak, but maybe a while they're at your farm stand, they also pick up some ground beef and other things too. And so it's, it's kind of a cool way to leverage one product that might be a little harder to get to at least bring the audience in and help hopefully sell them a few other things. What would be some of your advice to farmers just beginning to sell direct as well as maybe making that transition to selling direct online.
Angelica: 14:53
Selling direct is definitely the best. I being in control of like the price. I hate not being in control of like the orders happening when I need them to happen. And I hate waiting for payments. And what's great about the direct marketing at a farmer's market. And online is, you know, based on a lot of different factors. I like it that you're in control and having so the farmer's market direct marketing. Same thing. It's really nice, you know, with the Barn2Door platform, you can, it's so easy to go in, change your volume, like how many you have and your price. So you can easily like set a bulk buy on there to, if you want to like drop the price and try and get people to buy more. It's nice being in control. You know, even just this year I had a lot of one of my summer variety blackberries, and I was going to try and wholesale it. The store was like, I already have like a big bulk buy with another farmer. He couldn't really take, you know, the volume that much. So I just at farmer's market, pushed 'em, went on sale. Offered if you buy two, you get a good deal and it worked out and it just seems like, at least for me and it's just nice, like being in control and being able to sell it yourself and change the pricing if you need to. And I feel like just for me going ahead I have realized that I wanna keep my different projects of the different berries at a size where I can sell it on myself at the market and online and to get away from even the possibility of needing to wholesale.
Rory: 16:34
Yeah, the flexibility really is that sounds like that's been huge for you and, and being able to price things at what you want, move when you want, that's great to hear. Last year when we had talked, you had also just kind of started up your delivery program. So it was kind of curious how has that been evolving over the past year and making it easier for customers to order from you?
Angelica: 16:53
Yeah. The the delivery program it's gone really well. I feel like I have a lot of the same customers from last year. I recognized a lot of the names as customers that came back. And also I've noticed this year when a five-week would end like a lot of customers then re-upped and continued with another five week. I would say, that last year, you know, it was our first year and it did really well. But yeah, some days were like smaller. It was something new. Like not everyone knows right away. It's even something that you offer. And I feel like, you know, even just one year later our delivery routes. I added two trucks per day, most of the time instead of one truck. It seems just very consistent, but I would say for like next year, something I could improve on is to try and promote it a little bit more. Cause I feel like since it was going well, I didn't promote it as much as I could have. And maybe then instead of doing two days a week, maybe we'll do three days a week and include some more zip codes. So yeah, it's nice to be able to be in control of that. It's easy to add on another day or add more zip codes. It's nice.
Rory: 18:01
Another program that you were just starting and you, and you've mentioned it here a few times, but was the frozen berries you were kind of starting to look into that last year when when you were last on the podcast. Could you maybe talk about how you kind of, were able to flush that program out? Cause that is a pretty big step. There's a lot of infrastructure changes I'm sure. And so maybe how you kind of went about putting that together at your farm?
Angelica: 18:23
Yeah. Man, I'd been wanting to do frozen berries for a long time, because I have been wanting to try selling at a couple markets you around, and then probably like five years ago on Craigslist, I found a shipping container. It was like a 20 foot shipping container. That was a freezer that a local company was selling. It was in really good shape. They were selling it at a really good price. So I was like, dad, we got to go get that. We went and got it, then, , a few thing that got going, it got busy, I never got it hooked up and it just sat there and like a couple of years went by and I was like, oh man, I had ordered custom print freezer bags. Had those in stocks was still dragging my feet on this whole thing. Then last year with COVID and sales not doing that good. It definitely made me. be like ok tell me to get the freezer hookup. I called our electrician, had him come out, have our refrigeration guy come out. And so, luckily like I had the freezer and I had the bags, so I just got it connected and we started freezing mainly blueberries. Cause I was like, that's like easy. I felt like that was the easiest thing to freeze and really popular for smoothies and things. It worked really well. You know, it was new for us. We had to figure out like, how are we gonna keep these frozen all day and transport them? There was like new stuff to figure out, but nothing was too hard. And it worked really well, the thing we just immediately realized where we had only frozen a little bit of raspberries, cause it was like the end of the season. We ran out really quickly and a lot of people were asked about strawberries, raspberries to various things like that. And so this year, yeah, we definitely ended last season being like, well, we need more frozen berry variety. So you've definitely been, on point just freezing every type of berry we can. We don't bring them to markets right now because we still have fresh and our trucks are kind of small and they're pretty full with the fresh stuff. So we're going to wait until things slow down and we don't have as many fresh berries. And then we'll start bringing the frozen stuff to market and it's a great way to extend the season. People really liked it now at farmer's markets, people will be like, do you still have the frozen blueberries? And we're like, well, we have fresh ones, but people definitely still want the frozen stuff. So I, I think it'll be fun to bring it back and have more variety.
Rory: 20:47
And a great way to, like you said, extend your season, extend period of time where you can be bringing in revenue and also have people interacting with your brand so that they're used to seeing you there winter, summer, spring, fall. That's really awesome. As a customer, but also as a farm advisor toBarn2Door, could you maybe share a little bit about what your experience has been so far and maybe kind of from, from your own perspective, how barn doors has changed and evolved over the past year in terms of the product, but also the support and, and for farmers and everything that is kind of going on.
Angelica: 21:17
Yeah, definitely. Last year, things were so crazy. And last year when markets were getting going, like we just didn't even know if the markets were going to open all the market managers were telling us like, oh, you guys need to have a way for customers to pre-order, and I had no idea how to do that. And so I talked to another farmer at the market that I've known for a really long time and they had recently got connected with Barn2Door and they were really happy with the website and the store and the customer support and service. And um, yeah, I was like kind of nervous, like, oh my goodness. Now, if I do this, is this going to be hard? I'm not techie. I'm not good at online. But I would say there was so much help like onboarding and doing the weekly kind of short 30 minute meetings. So even in my busy season, I mean that it was easy to fit in a 30 minutes, a little session and. Before, you know, it, like the store was up, the website was up so much help getting it all up and like working, but also just a lot of help on getting it to where I felt comfortable using the site. Getting my invoices printed off for the next day and doing my inventory, there was so much helpful in the way. And it was just like a little bit of new stuff every week. So it didn't overwhelm me, like we would, the first main thing was just getting the store live and then the website live. But then we just took it little by little then maybe the delivery route, then a subscription. And so I would say it was a very fun, pleasant process. Very happy along the way to have your guys' support. And so just so happy with how the website and the online store turned out. I get compliments all the time. Like even just my friends will be like, look at your website. It's awesome. I love the online store. And like I said, how easy it is to use, for them on their side. But also for me, like I said, it's so easy to manage my inventory, change my pricing. Or if I switched to a new variety, switch the description, super user friendly, so happy to have it in place. And I love that Barn2Door, they're there for like any help you need, but it's also like they have done so much changing and like new things that they're offering things that I still need to take advantage of. And, but like I said, I'm really excited about the route planning integration partnership, but then there's a lot of other cool things too, that I want to, like, when things slow down, look into like Mailchimp, and I want to start sending out newsletters and there's so many other ways to use like the Barn2Door stuff that they would offer that I there's other things that I still need to learn, but yeah, it's been a great experience. I definitely always recommend it to other farms that don't have an online presence yet, or I don't have a way to do the pre-order. I just love that it takes the payment too, because that was one thing is on my old website. People could submit an order to me for wholesale and I would get like an email of what they wanted and what day and what market they wanted to pick up. But there was no way to take the payment and that's, what's so nice about the Barn2Door site. Is it completely takes that off my plate? You know, like I set mine to where people have to pay to place an order and then it's done. Then all I have to worry about is. My end of the thing, like getting them the berries to the market or doing the home delivery, but it's nice that they, the customer, I think they like it and I do it. The payment's done it's taken care of and you don't have to worry about it.
Rory: 24:53
For a farmer who has either heard about Barn2Door or is thinking about signing up, what would be kind of your advice to them?
Angelica: 25:00
I would say definitely do it. And even though like, Like gonna be coming into a slower time for people. Well, depending on I guess what they're growing, but I would say um, you know, it's even now, even if your busiest season is winding down or over, it's a really good time to do it. Maybe even better because it'd be nice to get it all set up, before your next busy season hits, have it all in place. It also might give you some good ideas as far as like maybe your local farmer's market is going to close. Maybe it's a seasonal one and you still have stuff you want to sell. Well, if you get hooked up on Barn2Door and you you could get a delivery system going or subscriptions and it will, it can help you, you know, the farmers still make sales, even if their local farmer's market is going to end. The farmer's markets are great and they're our core business, but it was really nice to have the Barn2Door like online sales and home deliveries, because I was even more in control of that. And it was still an outlet. It wasn't going to get shut down because of he or it was so that's, what's nice is it's kind of good to be, have some other options and diversify, so you're not have all your eggs in one basket.
Rory: 26:14
Yeah. And yeah. And like you were saying, it's a good time if you're not in a growing season or something like that to kind of get all those things set up, ready to go so that when you do hit your growing season, customers can just go straight to the store. I guess just as a final question, what's kind of next for Hayden farms, berries in the coming year?
Angelica: 26:29
Okay, well, so I am really excited about planting more of the pink lemonade blueberries.
Rory: 26:35
Awesome.
Angelica: 26:37
They put on a lot of new growth this year. So hopefully I don't get hit with any like late frost next year and kinda have a better crop. I would say another exciting thing for next year will be planting two small projects this spring of a yellow raspberry, and then also kind of like a peachy yellow raspberry the crops look really good. So I'm excited to have that for next year. And then, yeah, I'm excited to offer more delivery days and more subscriptions and kind of build that side of things.
Rory: 27:09
Awesome. Well, yeah, it's great to hear that you guys are growing and doing well. And hopefully we'll get to talk to you again in a year and keep hearing about how things are going.
Angelica: 27:16
Yeah, for sure.
Rory: 27:17
I want to extend my thanks to Angelica for joining us on this week's podcast episode here at Barn2Door, we are humbled to support thousands of farmers across the country, including farmers like Angelica, who implement sustainable agricultural practices and support their local communities. For more information on Hayton Farm's Berries, visit HaytonFarmsBerries.com. To learn more about Barn2Door, including access to numerous free resources and best practices for your farm. Go to Barn2Door.com/resources. Thank you for tuning in. We'll see you next week