Less is More: Tips to Streamline Your Farm Business
In this episode, we sit down with Will Mastin of Local Appetite Growers (AL). Will shares his tips for streamlining operations – including planting less, narrowing his delivery zones, and packaging products into Bundle Boxes. Listen as these decisions help him save time and money while driving profits – and selling out.
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[00:00:00]
Rory Loughran: Welcome to the Direct Farm Podcast. I'm Rory, your host for today's episode. We've got a great conversation for you today with one of our farm advisors, Will Maston from Local Appetite Growers located in Alabama.
Welcome will. It's good to have you back on the podcast.
Will Mastin: Hey Rory, I'm glad to be here.
Rory Loughran: Yeah, it's, uh, it's been a little while. I think the last time you were on was the first podcast you did with us since you joined the fan team, um, could you maybe just share a little bit about your farm, about your background and where your farm is at today?
Will Mastin: Sure. Um, well, my farm [00:01:00] is called Local Appetite Growers we are located in Silver Hill, Alabama, which is kind of on the south, south end of the state, near mobile. and, we are primarily grow hydroponic lettuce and leafy greens. But we do a few other things. We grow some field crops, some carrots and some radishes, and couple of other things, but our, our main crop is our lettuce and we sell that to restaurants and to, markets and grocery stores. And then we also have a home delivery, like a subscription service just for our kind of immediate area.
Rory Loughran: Yeah. And I was curious too about the wholesale side of things. Is that something you've always done, or is that something that has kind of grown since you've done this more and more?
Will Mastin: Yes. That we started, we started out kind of doing to, to restaurants, selling directly to restaurants because that was, [00:02:00] seemed to be where we could sell a lot of product, consistently and, um, so we started selling to, that's why I started taking my stuff around to different restaurants around town and we sort of established a market there.
And then later we decided we would try to sell to individuals through, a home delivery service, just for our local area. And that was kind of a small part of our business. And then Covid happened and everything. We went from having a majority of restaurant and wholesale customers to having a majority of home delivery customers cuz everyone was at home everything was kind of strange and restaurants were closed down.
Rory Loughran: Mm-hmm.
Will Mastin: that sort of saved us and got us through that period. So now we do, we do both. We, we still have the home delivery service and we sell, we try to sell more to wholesale accounts cuz that just helps us move more and more product as we grow and produce more.
Rory Loughran: Yeah, definitely. Well, uh, for today's podcast, I wanted to dive into a topic that [00:03:00] I know, um, you've discussed in Barn2Door Connect multiple times. And so for folks that don't know what that is, Barnard Door Connect, we host these, twice a week sessions with all of our different farm advisors.
So we'll host sessions as well as all the other farm advisors that you hear on the podcast. If you're interested in that, you can just go to the barndoor website to learn more. But, you've talked with folks a lot about streamlining your business and I thought that would be a really great topic to kind of dive in with you today.
Cause I think you've done such a good job of it. But, when your farm first started, and when you speak to some of these beginning farmers that might come into connect, do you find that it's really easy to stretch yourself too thin, in the early stages of starting a farm business?
Will Mastin: Well, uh, sure. In the beginning stages. That's, especially if you don't have a clear, concise. You know, uh, crop or method whatever it is, um, it's, you want to grow, you want to try new things, and you want to try everything. Maybe we can grow this and people are having a hard time. Finding this crop.
And [00:04:00] so, we're always asking chefs and customers for recommendations and suggestions and so yeah, we did a lot of experimenting and I think that's part of it even, we've all, we've started with lettuce and that's kind of been our main thing because it's productive we do it hydroponically and have a good system. But, we tried growing everything from Jerusalem artichokes to, microgreens. We did some mushrooms. And I'm not saying we're never gonna grow those things again, but they just got to be where we, it was sort of a distraction from our main crops that we're really doing well for us.
So we've tried lots of things , and the, you know, we look at what we, our sales at the end of the year and what's bringing us money and try to figure out how much time we're spending on each crop. There's lettuce for us is our clear winner, and so we try to produce more of that and there's some other crops that are good winners too. [00:05:00] But, things like tomatoes, we were growing tomatoes, we tried tomatoes every which way in the field, and the greenhouse hydroponically organically. and , we just didn't really make a lot of money on 'em as as popular as they were. And as much as people got excited about tomatoes, we looked at our sales at the end of the year and, um, I don't know if it's just our climate or we just are not producing them well or not charging enough, but we just never really made money on 'em.
So we had to make the decision to our greenhouse space was too valuable to be spending on something that was not making money for us. So, decisions you have to make. It's great if you can have a niche market. And really, and I, and I know a lot of growers that, you know, they're niches microgreens, or they do just mushrooms or edible flowers. But for us, those things were not making us money and they were taking up. Time and space, and we just weren't as good at it as some other things. So we, yeah, I think it's like any business, you just have to decide what [00:06:00] services and goods are worth carrying.
Rory Loughran: Yeah. Would you say that kind of initial phase of figuring that out, do you think that's just a necessary process that everybody needs to go through and that you kind of don't get that clarity or that perspective, until you're a little bit more into it.
Will Mastin: I, I think so. I, I think so. Unless you have a market, a clear cut market. Somebody says, you know, a grocery store says, I need you to grow me, a hundred pounds a week of this crop.
Rory Loughran: Mm-hmm.
Will Mastin: to kind of experiment and see what you can grow well and what you like to grow. I mean, you had, there's things to consider, like how long is something in the ground and how long does that crop take? And that was the thing with tomatoes, was tomatoes were, you know, you typically grow indeterminate tomatoes, that's a long season crop. And so it just takes a long time and they take up space for six months. Whereas we could have produced, six months worth of lettuce being harvested every week out of that greenhouse. And. and it's a lot less [00:07:00] work. And, but like I said, we learned just by trial and error, and I think that most people to kind of learn by trial and error. And because, you don't really know it's gonna work until you put it out there and see if you can, you know, you might grow something and realize that you're not charging enough and you can get a big margin on certain crops.
And then that's what you want to grow if you can do it well,
um, But yeah, I think people kind of have to l learn what works for them and what doesn't, because different climates are different. It's hot and humid and tropical down here. And so things that, like, you know, peppers do well down here.
So we've, that's one thing that we do because it's just, it's easy and they're productive and it works for our environment. We just learn that through trial and error.
Rory Loughran: Mm-hmm. . I think something that you touched on too, I would love to hear more from you on is, you talked about tomatoes now and you said like those were really, they were popular people liked them, and wanted 'em from you guys, but when you get to the end of the year, you look at your books and they just don't add up.
I know [00:08:00] that can be a really hard, perspective to have for a lot of folks if they have a product that. That people ask for or that people are wanting or that, or people are, they know people are buying. But to kind of actually take a step back and look at it and say, is this profitable? What was that process like?
How did you, what went into that thinking, how did you decide to do that? And then, how did your customers kind of handle that once you guys stopped doing tomatoes?
Will Mastin: Oh, I mean, it was, it wasn't really that big of an issue, you know, tomatoes are really seasonal for us, so we, you know, when we grow 'em, we grow 'em in the spring and the fall, and so they come in for two or three months and then they go out for two or three months. we just, a lot of people have asked for 'em and, you know, I just tell 'em, I said, Hey, it just, it's just not something we do.
And. Now that's not saying we don't do any tomatoes at all. We just don't devote valuable time and effort. We'll [00:09:00] plan a
Rory Loughran: Mm-hmm. '
Will Mastin: em and, but yeah, people, they just have to go elsewhere to find them. And, Like I said, it's just, it's not been a problem. Our lettuce is our main draw, and it's what people count on us for.
So we've tried to get better on being more consistent with that and
Rory Loughran: Mm.
Will Mastin: every week as opposed to producing a little bit of this and a little bit of that.
Rory Loughran: Yeah. I know you guys have done some other kind of, streamlining activities, I guess, or some, some ways that you guys have kind of, he helped narrow some things down, but I guess we can dive into 'em after this question. But, what would be some of those other ways that you would say you've Help streamline your business, save yourself some time or effort, and really focus on making sure it's a sustainable, profitable business.
Will Mastin: Um, well, I guess I would say. trying to free up as much of my time and my partner's time, that's really valuable. I mean,
Rory Loughran: Mm-hmm.
Will Mastin: always show on a balance sheet, but,[00:10:00] obviously when we started with Barn2Door, there was a big learning curve and I was spending a lot of time with it, doing our sales online. But now that saves me, you know, that saves me a big, big deal of time just having everything, the orders come in, automatically just send everybody to our webpage and the Barn2Door site. And so that saves me a lot of time just having to manage people and
Rory Loughran: Mm-hmm.
Will Mastin: and do emails.
And we used to have people's credit cards and I had a thing that I would punch it in and charge it every week. And that took hours every week and so I've kind of cut out a lot of that time. That's from a, kind of a bookkeeping side of streamlining things. But far as our other operations actually growing, what we've done is just, we just look every year we look at the crops that make us money, and we determine how much effort that we've put into those crops and how long they're in the ground. And we try to figure out, it's like, is this worth growing again? Is this worth taking [00:11:00] up six months of bedtime when I can get two crops of, you know, some, a short season crop out of there?
or you know, and then there's a issue of things staying in the ground too long. It's like we still have eggplant in the ground and they're still producing, but we need to get the kale planted. So it's like, when do you cut your losses? So us, streamlining was like, okay, well. you know, the production on these, these eggplant or cucumbers, whatever it is, they, we know they're gonna go down as the vines get older.
And so it's more important to have the next season's crop in the ground and ready to go. so what we have done is just. cut. We've just cut out like 50% of what we used to grow and really focused on four or five crops that make us money. And you know, when we look at 'em at the end of the year, we're like, okay, we made, we did good on this crop and it was big percentage of our sales.
And so, it's a lot of root crops. Radishes are surprisingly, a very profitable thing for us. You don't [00:12:00] think about radishes and we grow specialty radishes like dcos and
Rory Loughran: Mm-hmm.
Will Mastin: just the standard red ones you find at every Mexican restaurant. But, um, and the same thing with peppers.
We grow specialty peppers and it's a lot of it's the radishes. They're low effort and they're ready really fast, and you can have those radishes done and get another crop in behind. while you've still got season. So instead of trying to grow and manage rotating 12 crops, we've cut it down to like six, we just give those bigger areas and we can manage them better so we're not, having wasted bed space and that sort of thing.
So that's, that's one way that we've streamlined our crops.
Rory Loughran: I really like the way you look at that too, in just in terms of the, the space that you have. And I think that's great advice, especially for farmers that are working with a smaller amount of space, to make sure that you're maximizing it and not trying to pursue every, especially when you're doing vegetables, [00:13:00] but, to pursue everything that, that any.
Customer asks for, at the farmer's market or when you're doing deliveries, to make sure that what you are using, for that space is the most profitable and the stuff that, um, is kind of the, the wide appealing stuff. I was curious too, I know you, you started mentioning, the online store and how that's kind of helped you streamline, bookkeeping and orders and things like that.
How has that kind of helped you save time? And what steps has that cut outta your process that you can now just kind of automate?
Will Mastin: Well for our home delivery customers, you know, people always are, were asking, I, I basically had an application form a paper form or a PDF that I could email people. They would fill it out, they'd put their credit card information on there, and, mail it or email it back to me, and that's the way that we used to do it.
We would
Rory Loughran: Mm-hmm.
Will Mastin: these people, they'd sign up and say, You know, local appetite can charge whatever, 12 weeks worth of deliveries. I authorized this and then I would [00:14:00] take that and I would have to of manually input all that stuff. Or somebody would wanna say, Hey, here's cash.
Sign me up, you know, a friend. so now I just don't even, I don't even do that anymore. I, that used to take hours every week because I'd have to keep track of when people's subscriptions expired and, I had a whole spreadsheet that I was keeping track of, who got stuff when, who skipped a week, this sort of thing.
And so with Barn2Door going through our automated sales for that service, I just sent everybody to our web store. And so everybody signs up, I don't have. don't have to volley back and forth, with people. And people still ask questions and submit questions about things, but you know, it's people either they buy or they don't,
Rory Loughran: Mm-hmm.
Will Mastin: ready, they go there and they're ready to buy or, or else they don't.
And, and I never have to even, you know, I, people will ask me and, send me the link or what's your website? But, Really, it's pretty much everything is sent there from our [00:15:00] website and our social media, so pretty self-explanatory and it just saves, I mean, it saves me probably, I don't know, six or seven hours a week of just sorting through all those customers and who was due for payment.
I can go and do a report out from my weekly orders out of Barn2Door and if somebody has canceled, people can go in there and cancel, without ever having to talk to me. And I can see if that's been done. And so it just, gives me all of those orders in one place and it manages all the payments.
And that's what saves me a lot of time. Cause I used to do all that and it was a drag and
Rory Loughran: Yeah.
Will Mastin: one of those things, it's like, oh God, it's Monday. I've gotta do this. So,
Rory Loughran: Yeah, definitely.
Will Mastin: If I wanted to go on vacation or whatever, it just, it was a lot tougher.
But now, like I said, it's nice being able to just go and just, I just make a pdf out of my little packing report each week, and I know who's paid, who hasn't, and who doesn't want to be delivery this week. So,[00:16:00]
Rory Loughran: Yeah, definitely. The, the dreaded spreadsheets are always, they're never fun. I was curious too, cause I know we've had folks come into those connect sessions that. Maybe are even signed up with Barn2Door, but are still taking orders by phone call or text. And then I know a lot of people that's just, I mean, kind of how you are operating beforehand too, but a lot of people operate that way and make all their sales that way.
But what would you say to somebody that is still fulfill or taking every order, over a phone call or by text or by Facebook Messenger?
Will Mastin: Well, I mean, I'd say if you can, the, you're gonna save yourself a lot of time by, by sending everybody the web store. I mean, that's what it's designed to do, is to take you out of the equation. And that's what, that's the first step of automation, is taking you having to touch everything and touch every order of the equation that, that's the first step to, to automating your business. and we aren't totally, we have all of our home delivery sales going through the web [00:17:00] store, but I have, I still have, I have chef customers and restaurants that
Rory Loughran: Mm-hmm.
Will Mastin: I still do things. I just go straight into QuickBooks cuz they have the same order they've had for 10 years and, so I, I don't have them going and I'm trying to reconcile, you know, so I, we still have a ways to go.
Rory Loughran: Mm.
Will Mastin: if you can, um, you know, we sell, we, we have stuff up there at, on our web store and, you know, people can go there anytime of day or night. I get orders come in at all times and people don't have to hesitate about calling or texting. So it's just something where people can, they're like, oh, they get up at five in the morning, they're like, oh, I've been meaning to sign up for that.
You know, get my produce this week.
Rory Loughran: Mm-hmm.
Will Mastin: jump on the air real quick and put their credit card in and you get the order and you don't ever have to deal with.
Rory Loughran: Yeah, yeah. which I think sometimes people think sounds, sounds less personable or they miss that interaction. But really the time savings alone is so huge for so many farmers. I know.
Will Mastin: Yeah, and I used to be [00:18:00] like that too, you know, for the first five or six years where I wanted to talk to everybody and everybody to know me and talk to the farmer and. the more I got into it and I started spending hours and days doing bookkeeping and, stuff away from farming. You know, it's like, I, I really, it's nice to have a tool to automate anything that you can and
Rory Loughran: Hmm.
Will Mastin: labor out of it. that's a, that's a big return.
Rory Loughran: Yeah. Uh, well, I know another thing and we haven't even really got into this yet, but, another thing that you've done a really great job of is cutting down, your, the number of zip codes that you offer delivery to and I know this is something you've talked with folks and connect a, a decent amount as well.
What kind of went into that decision and maybe talk us through to start what was that process like of starting a delivery program and then how did you decide to start narrowing it down and where did you decide to do that?
Will Mastin: well, we had, we started out with small, a small delivery area, and [00:19:00] we expanded. We expanded to Mobile across the bay, which is you know, maybe an hour, 45 minutes from our farm. And then there's a lot of, we have a, that's one direction from us. And then another direction. We have the beach areas of Orange Beach and Gulf Shores, Alabama, which there's a lot of seasonal stuff down there.
Summertime's really busy, tourists. And it's pretty busy year round cuz. Good climate, but the, we were delivering, we wanted to try to get some of both of those markets and we were doing pretty well. And I, and our justification is that we do restaurant deliveries at the same time that we're doing home deliveries.
So we cover the restaurants in these areas and then do deliveries while we're out, , in the neighborhood delivering and the Gulf shores, the beach route for us. Just, we lost a big restaurant customer, they changed hands and, We were just, we just looked at it and looked at how much time and miles that we were putting on our delivery [00:20:00] van and what we were paying our driver. And it just didn't make sense economically to keep, we were just had a handful of customers down there and,
Rory Loughran: Mm-hmm.
Will Mastin: not happy when I told 'em that we were cutting 'em off, but you know, most of 'em were like, we understand that's business. If it do, if it doesn't make sense for you to drive down here, and we charged a delivery fee, which if you have thir 25 or 30 deliveries and everybody's got a five or $10 delivery fee, then it's worthwhile, but,
Rory Loughran: Hmm.
Will Mastin: and it takes half a day and you've only got five or six addresses, that's, it's not worth it for $30 to have, for a delivery fee for, to have somebody drive around all day.
Rory Loughran: Yeah,
Will Mastin: you just have to look at where it's just, just business principles, I guess, which is not my strong suit to be talking on, but as I'm learning, we're trying to sharpen the pencil on our farm.
Rory Loughran: Do you find that you're able to, to focus in on the areas that you are still offering, [00:21:00] delivery in and kind of make up those sales in places that you are already going to?
Will Mastin: Yeah. And that's the other thing is that we were getting stretched sort of thin with how much we could produce. And so cutting out some of those markets allows us to sell more because we have a lot of, we've caught some traction with some of our products and, and these local markets, and they want, as there's some items that they just want as much as we can bring 'em.
And so now we can bring those markets more, and so we're selling more and then we. another person that sort of brokers our, our produce, to restaurants, a little bit farther out from us, towards New Orleans. so we are able to sell them more now because we have more available. So that's part of what it is too, is trying to figure out if there's really good customers that will buy more.
And it's easy, easier to just sell them more. that's kind of another strategy too. If it's less work and you're selling the same amount of product and know it, it is good for you. Our customer and the big customer in New Orleans wants more and more, [00:22:00] and so we're able to give him more because we're kind of cut out some customers that weren't so profitable.
Rory Loughran: Mm-hmm. Well, something else that I, I'm, I've heard a lot from farms that, are either in connect or in our academies as well, but, is people that have special customers that they might make an exception for and they take that customer's order, still by phone or they let that customer text them or they might drive an extra long distance to bring that special customer their orders.
What would be your advice in that situation? Because I know you just mentioned you had folks that were kind of down on the beach that you they, and they respected the decision, but you kind of just had to say like, we're not gonna be making this drive anymore.
Will Mastin: Yeah, I mean, I guess I would say if you can make exceptions without causing yourself more work or loss of energy or money, then do it. I mean, cuz it's, that's the personal where you can still give the personal touch.
Rory Loughran: Mm-hmm.
Will Mastin: trying to touch and talk to every one of [00:23:00] your customers. So I mean, yeah, we ha we definitely have some customers like that.
There's, we have some schools that buy our lettuce and they're kind of out of our delivery route. So I'll make it a point to go down there cuz they're a good customer and we wanna be in the school. and it's
Rory Loughran: Mm-hmm.
Will Mastin: business for us. And, and then we have, you know, there's a couple of little old ladies that live on the route and they just wanna leave a checkout and they don't get on the internet.
And you know, so there, there's a couple like that, which probably I shouldn't do, but these people have, you know, I've just known 'em in the community and
Rory Loughran: Mm-hmm.
Will Mastin: know, I feel like it's our good service. But yes, those little things can a toe, tripper, you know,
Rory Loughran: Yeah.
Will Mastin: special customers because you have to go outta your way and you gotta remember 'em.
And you don't get automatic reminders from your web store, you know,
Rory Loughran: Mm.
Will Mastin: person a delivery. So that's the problem, is you have to keep up with them. You have to manage 'em on your own. It's less that you're automating, but as much as you can automate [00:24:00] the better. And any part of your business, especially sales, I think that's, it's a great thing cuz it takes a lot of human interaction time out of your job.
Rory Loughran: That's great advice. Uh, just that, you know, if it, if it kind of fits with what you're already doing because, and I think the other thing to be wary of in those situations is you're then splitting your channels, basically, instead of using the one, you know, you've kind of, you gotta remember that those extra special customers aren't gonna be on your pick and pack list.
And so remembering to, to make sure you grab their order and stuff can be a little bit of an extra hassle.
Will Mastin: It's diluting the efficiency of your system. Of your
Rory Loughran: Mm-hmm.
Will Mastin: system.
Rory Loughran: Yeah, definitely. Well, I'm curious too, I know you mentioned this earlier, how would you advise or how have you gone about talking to those customers that you have had to, maybe not deliver to anymore, or you've had to transition 'em onto ordering from you through an online store?
How have you handled those conversations?
Will Mastin: We sell [00:25:00] to several markets
Rory Loughran: Mm-hmm.
Will Mastin: um, grocery stores and farmer's markets. And so I can, I'm able to just send people there, that's been a good, I mean, they can't get everything at the markets that we do on our home delivery, but that's our next best thing.
Rory Loughran: Mm-hmm.
Will Mastin: given me too much heartburn about it. I mean, it's just business. If you're, some customers are profitable and some aren't, and you have to continually try to get the profitable ones and weed out the less profitable.
Rory Loughran: Well, going back to your product offering, I know we've talked a lot about how you've gone through that process of focusing in on the products that make the most sense for your farm and make the most profit. I'm curious, have you worked with other farms to still be able to provide some of those things that you, yourself might have stopped growing, but you still want to keep offering your customer?
Will Mastin: We do, we do. We used to do a lot more of that. I used to work with a lot of farmers, and then in fact, that's one of the [00:26:00] ways that we've streamlined our home delivery service. We used to try to just put a little bit so much in there and we would try to get stuff from every farmer and we'd just try to make these bounties bags, and was just running us to death, trying to find stuff every week of the year. and we were like, look, then we were spending money and time and gas and delivery, just going to get this produce from farmers. It was all from stuff from our county, but sometimes you had to drive an hour each way to go pick up a load of squash or whatever it was. So we decided it's like, look, we don't need to try to just sell other farmers' produce if it's not making us money.
And so we've even streamlined that. So we streamlined our offering of our what we call our local bags, our CSA subscription service, to where it's more of just what we produce, which helps us sell more, and it's easier supply chain. And so, now we sell more lettuce and eggs, which we produce, and then we'll, we like [00:27:00] sweet potatoes are a great thing for us because we have a lot of sweet potato farmers around and we can buy 'em in bulk for cheap and really get a good markup on 'em. Okra in the summertime is another thing that really works good for us. We can buy okra, grown, harvested, and delivered for less than we can grow it for.
Rory Loughran: Mm-hmm.
We buy
Will Mastin: it from other guys cheaper than we can like grow it and pay somebody to pick it for.
Rory Loughran: Mm.
Will Mastin: that's one thing. It just, we don't grow okra anymore because it's just, it's, there's so many other farmers that do it and do it cheaply. And that, so that really works out well for us. And it's also great for getting just bulk if we wanted to make pickled okra, which is something we do sometimes. just to change up what we have in our, our local bag offerings. So yeah, I think that's a really good way to, it's if you can get it for a good price point and everybody's making money,
Rory Loughran: Yeah.
Will Mastin: we, we do offer, we sell like honey and eggs sometimes if we don't have enough of our own eggs, we'll sell other people's [00:28:00] eggs and we'll sell honey.
But those costs, that's a premium product for us and it's hard for us to really charge enough to. That's, it's not as profitable as the other things that I mentioned earlier.
Rory Loughran: Yeah. Yeah.
Will Mastin: so I guess, yeah, if you have a good other farm, if you have other good suppliers that you can get stuff in bulk very inexpensively and make a markup on it, that's a very good to be in.
Rory Loughran: Mm-hmm. . Yeah.
Will Mastin: like that you're buying from other, they're not just helping your farm, they're helping a network of local farms and that's a good message to give people.
Rory Loughran: Yeah, definitely. And that they, I think a lot of times it helps the consumer too, just, it simplifies the process for them. Like they, they wanna be purchasing from a lot of different farms, but they might not actually want to go through the work of finding all those farms and placing all bunches separate orders.
able to do that through one place is really
Will Mastin: nice.
And our, our restaurant customers like that too. You
Rory Loughran: Mm-hmm.
Will Mastin: don't have to go to some of these other farmers to get some of these things that we carry, [00:29:00] like the sweet potatoes or gold
Rory Loughran: Mm-hmm.
Will Mastin: corn when it's in season, can get
Rory Loughran: Do you,
Will Mastin: just bring 'em a couple bushels and they just pay a, a little bit more just for the convenience of it.
Rory Loughran: I'm curious, how do you handle, like, uh, do you tell your customers where these products are coming from? Like, what farm is producing 'em? Uh, how do you handle that side of things? Communicating all that?
Will Mastin: we actually, what we do is in, so when we do our deliveries, We, we basically make a package and a little paper bag, like a grocery store, paper bag.
Rory Loughran: Mm-hmm.
Will Mastin: I actually have little printouts that I put in there, so I'll print it out. I'll make it so I can fit two of 'em on a page and cut it in half just so
Rory Loughran: Mm-hmm.
Will Mastin: so much paper. And so yeah, if we have, I'll, I have a list of what's in there every week. I'll usually put a recipe on there if there's something unusual like
Rory Loughran: Mm-hmm.
Will Mastin: or bok choy, things people don't buy every day. I'll put a recipe in there. Just a simple something do with it. So that people don't [00:30:00] call me and say, oh, what is this stuff? I don't know how to
Rory Loughran: use it.
Yeah.
Will Mastin: It actually saves a lot of that saves a lot of trouble too. Just like, okay, I know you're gonna ask, what is this thing? Are these, are these peppers hot? Or is this a hot mustard or. So, I try to preempt that by, I put the little slips in there and I say, you know, if we get something from another farm, I say it's from this farm.
we give credit where credit's due and, like I said, that's kind of a preemptive thing too.
Rory Loughran: Yeah. Yeah. I feel like that's kind of, uh, maybe the, the common thread through a lot of this is getting ahead of things, putting in some work beforehand to save yourself a lot of work over the next couple months or weeks, or things like that. Would you say that's how you try and approach a lot of your business?
Will Mastin: Yeah. Well, yeah, especially it once you have been doing it for a while, you can see patterns of. Of how people are gonna act or react or if there's, if there's crops like, you know, like sweet corn, there's gonna be caterpillars in it. [00:31:00] If it's organic corn, it's gonna, that's just anybody that grows corn knows that. I mean, you can spray it with BT and some of these org organic things, but that's just like, you know, so I have to explain to people like, okay, this corn has not been sprayed with poison. Uh,
Rory Loughran: huh
Will Mastin: a worm in it, don't freak out, it's just a bug, throw it out and wash off the corn and it's fine.
yes, that just when you have people's reaction, to things, you can sort of start to keep note of how people react. And like I said, the, I think putting the recipes for unusual things in there, is a big one for us because we grow some things that people aren't used to. We grow stuff for our chefs,
Rory Loughran: Mm-hmm.
Will Mastin: And not everybody's familiar with arugula or, Chinese mustard or you know, some of the dcon radishes. I just know that people are gonna be like, what are these things? Are they hot? Do I eat 'em raw? Uh,
Rory Loughran: Mm-hmm.
Will Mastin: questions. And so I think that's one thing that I've, that's definitely something that saves me [00:32:00] a lot of question answering.
Rory Loughran: Yeah.
Yeah. Definit.
Will Mastin: that's gonna, or if you have something that's weird colored or unusual, we were selling orange, tomatoes, little sun, gold, orange tomatoes, and people were asking me when these tomatoes were gonna be ripe, you know, cuz they were so used to seeing red tomatoes and so I
Rory Loughran: Yeah.
Will Mastin: like, okay, these are little gold, gold tomatoes.
Rory Loughran: Mm-hmm.
Will Mastin: not un ripe red tomatoes.
Rory Loughran: Yeah.
Will Mastin: you can do to kind of predict things people won't understand
Rory Loughran: Yeah. And just get ahead of it. What would be any other advice you might have to farmers who are interested in simplifying their inventory? How would you advise them to start taking steps to go through that process?
Will Mastin: Just, just simplify it far as what's the easiest way for you to package stuff? what, who are you selling to? You selling to a restaurant who can take stuff in big bulk bags cuz they're just gonna take it and do whatever they want with it. Or does it need to [00:33:00] be packaged individually for a retail setting, you know, it's like a market or something.
And they, they may want things in individual servings, but you have to figure out how. What is your simplest way of packaging? We used to have lettuce and six ounce bags and eight ounce bags, and one pound bags and four pound bags. And so we just, it was so many things, it was too much to keep track of, and so we just decided, it was like, okay, we're gonna sell lettuce by the head.
We're gonna sell it in a six pound bag. And then you have the individual size. So basically, you know, do you wanna sell stuff by the pound or do you wanna sell it in bulk?
Rory Loughran: Mm-hmm.
Will Mastin: just offer that don't offer different size increments of things. The less you offer, the less you have to manage. And yeah, I guess that's, and the way that we, I guess along with packaging, um, you know, if you're having things that you're having trouble selling, that's one nice thing about the way we do our subscription bags is because. We can [00:34:00] sell some things that maybe we have a lot of, that aren't selling to the restaurant markets. If we have a bunch of peppers left over, then we have that built in subscription service. We're like, okay, you're getting lettuce and you're getting, a random item every week. This week it might be peppers.
Next week we might have a bunch of okra, or it might be a bunch of set summas or whatever the thing is in season.
Rory Loughran: Mm-hmm.
Will Mastin: So that's been good for us is having an outlet for things that you may not, that's just one outlet that we're able to sell things that may not always sell on the wholesale or restaurant market.
So it's kind
Rory Loughran: Yeah.
Will Mastin: a little outlet
for
Rory Loughran: And I like too what you said about, kind of limiting that offering for folks. Cuz I know a lot of times that can be really overwhelming, especially, with any product, I mean, with vegetables, there's, you have so many things you can grow if you throw it every single thing that you grow into your online store, that can be pages of inventory that can be overwhelming for folks, especially if you're doing it in different sizes, as well.[00:35:00]
With for protein folks, you know, if you break down every single cut that's in a cow or a hog, uh, then that can be a lot of different products too. So trying to keep that simple and easy for customers to navigate can even increase your sales as well.
Well, are there any other, um, kind of ways or, or tips you would have, that local appetite growers is using automation or software or even just practices that you guys are doing to help save time and make your business more efficient?
Will Mastin: Well, I guess, your weekly schedule is a big thing that, that's something that we've have changed and morphed and, you know, I used to, I used to work a part-time job, and so I could only do be at the farm certain times and certain days. And as I've sort of transitioned to a different schedule, we like to sort of compile all of our harvesting to the beginning part of the week. So that we get everything harvested on the first three days. And then if there's stuff that doesn't get harvested, you've got like Thursday and [00:36:00] Friday for, you know, say, oh, oh, all the peppers didn't get picked. Or, oh, that lettuce is gonna be hot this week. We need to get it harvested again this week.
Or we
Rory Loughran: Mm-hmm.
Will Mastin: So, you know, just sort of making that pattern in your work schedule. So we have all our deliveries done by Wednesday. everything's been harvested and delivered for the week, and then we sort of have Thursday and Friday to either we start harvesting for next week if it's time, or if there if we've gotten all the harvesting done prior. you can, you can work on new projects. Like we're building a new lettuce greenhouse right now, so that's Thursdays and Fridays are big days for that. that's just kind of concentrating your, I think, I believe they call it batching, you know, so
Rory Loughran: Mm.
Will Mastin: to like batch all of our lettuce harvest, so Monday and Tuesday that's all we're doing is, is harvesting.
And then, Wednesday we're kind of cleaning it up and doing the last, we're replanning and we're doing the last of the deliveries. So that's something that we've found to be efficient is just [00:37:00] kind of batching your workflow instead of just if you can, I mean, not everybody can do that.
Some people, you gotta be there, whatever it is, planting and harvesting every day. But, if you can sort of batch your time and when your orders are coming in. And that sort of keeps, all the office work is heavy in the beginning of the week cuz that's when the invoices are coming in and that's when I'm making invoices and printing out delivery sheets.
And then by Wednesday most of that paperwork is done can sort of focus on, like I said, new capital projects.
Rory Loughran: Awesome. I know you mentioned you guys are working on a new greenhouse right now. And then obviously the venue, but, what's ahead for Local Appetite Growers in the next year or so?
Will Mastin: Yep. Yep. That's, that's it. We we're trying to get our venue space established and get that business sort of off the ground. And we're trying to grow more lettuce we're, the sales have been good and, and we sold out most all of the time, so we made that decision to. A greenhouse that [00:38:00] we were growing tomatoes in, we're converting it to a lettuce house.
Rory Loughran: Okay.
Will Mastin: not a fast process.
We're, we're doing that ourselves and you know, paying for it out of pocket as we go. And
Rory Loughran: Mm-hmm.
Will Mastin: it's just a slow process. But once we get that one going, and we'll have more lettuce to sell, we got, we're getting into meat chickens a little bit, just sort of experimenting right now just because there seems to be a big interest in that. and, um, we don't really know what we're doing, but we've got a few birds. We've got a few of 'em. Most of 'em are still alive. So gonna try to expand that business. And we've got a few cattle, but mostly just because we are leasing some land around us and the cattle are just helping us maintain it.
the grass mode and they are some wago bloodlines, so we're trying to do the fancy beef.
Rory Loughran: Mm-hmm.
Will Mastin: yeah, that's, that's just kind of side ventures. But, you know, growing, growing more lettuce and trying to automate, work less and make more money, that's the goal.[00:39:00]
Rory Loughran: There you go. Streamline that business. Yeah.
Will Mastin: figured that
Rory Loughran: man.
Will Mastin: working on it.
Rory Loughran: Those are some big side things, the, the chickens and the beef. I'll be interested to hear how that keeps going for you guys. I've seen some of that stuff on your Instagram, so I'm excited to see where it goes.
Will Mastin: Hmm.
Rory Loughran: Awesome.
Well, I want to extend my thanks to Will for joining us on this week's podcast episode here at Barn2Door. We're humbled to support thousands of farms across the country, including Local Appetite Growers. If you would like to connect with Will or other farm advisors, you can attend, those Barn2Door Connect sessions that we were talking about.
You can register for weekly sessions at barn2door.com/connect. And for more information on local appetite growers, you can follow them. Their Instagram is at Local Appetite Growers. Thank you for tuning in, and we'll see you next week.
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