Produce Packaging Basics
In this episode of the Direct Farm Podcast, David from Hopkins Farms returns to discuss Bundle Boxes, Subscriptions, optimizing Delivery, and how to be more efficient with packaging products.
Hopkins Farm is a 220-year-strong generational Farm located in Cairo, Georgia, that grows 40+ varieties of fruits and vegetables, providing local Farm-to-Table food delivered directly to customer's doorsteps.
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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, David Hopkins of Hopkins Farm, located in Cairo, Georgia.
Welcome David. Thanks for coming back on the podcast. I'm excited to have you here with us and I think we're gonna be kind of covering a lot of things today.
But to start out, since it's been a little bit since you've been on the podcast, could you share with us a little bit about Hopkins Farm and what you guys produce?
David Hopkins: Yeah Rory, glad to be back. Glad that y'all have me again. I hope I didn't bore you too much last [00:01:00] time. Hopkins Farms is in Cairo, Georgia. We've been around a long time. I'm the fifth generation out here, and I think since the last time I talked to you, I don't remember if we were finishing up our spring crop or what we were doing, but we're now onto our fall crop and we started picking tomatoes and peppers and eggplant and stuff this past week.
So we're getting right back, busy in and again.
Rory Loughran: Awesome. Well so, what was it that led you into, and I know we talked about this a lot in the last podcast, but what was it that really led you guys into going this direct to consumer route and selling your products direct to consumer?
David Hopkins: Well, we always have been wholesalers and doing everything else, but we always had people that were pedalers on the side and we'd always sell stuff to them, and it seemed like we had a little bit more waste than what I wanted to see. So I kind of got out there and found some people that wanted to buy direct from their Farmer.
They wanted to know where their food came from, and I was happy to sell it to 'em and started doing Farm-to-table boxes, as I like to call it. It's basically CSA, but you don't [00:02:00] have to pay your money up front or anything. You can get a box each week and people kind of tended to enjoy doing that.
They, like I said, they liked where their food, knowing where their food was coming from and had a face to put on it. And I'm not the best looking face, but I, put on a smile and happy to give him some produce.
Rory Loughran: That's awesome. Well, so when you're offering food products, and kind of one of the first things I wanted to talk with you about today. When you're doing food products, there's always a wide variety of options that you can offer people. And I think especially so when you're doing produce, Produce Farmers, that you're able to grow a lot and especially throughout the season.
And so you can offer your customers a lot of different options. However, Hopkins Farms, you guys have pretty much always kept it to just a few items in your online store. I think I looked the other day, and I think you guys currently have nine items in there. And those pretty much mostly are made up of bundle boxes and subscriptions.
So, I guess to start out, does limiting the amount of options a customer have, have you guys found that helps you actually increase sales?[00:03:00]
David Hopkins: I'd say so. I mean, it's, you know, kinda keeping it simple makes it a little bit easier, a little faster, streamlined through the store. Like you said, being a Produce Farmer, we can grow a lot of different stuff and we actually do anything that my dad even sparks a little bit of interest in.
We have probably 40 different crops that we grow twice a year. So keeping up with that's enough of a headache, much less trying to do the individual stuff by the piece. We allow them to do some substitutions. Say you don't eat eggplant. We grow a lot of eggplant and we enjoy it.
But if you don't enjoy it, we're happy to take that off. And you wanna add, more of another item that we have in the box that week, we're happy to make that substitution for you. But just trying to keep it more streamlined to where I got a box, I got nine items going in it every week. I could do a box with, you know, if you wanted just tomatoes, we'll sell you a box of just tomatoes too. It's just special requests that we kinda go with.
Rory Loughran: Yeah, and I know, like, I've [00:04:00] listened in or sometimes get to hear our Account Managers on their calls. And one of the things they share a lot is that, when there are fewer items available, it's a little bit easier for people to make that purchase decision, rather than taking the time to scroll through all the pages of your inventory.
I know sometimes that can be really overwhelming for folks if they're, you know, having to click through all these different pages to look for the one thing that they're trying to get. Especially if it's, they're scrolling through things that they might not even know what those products are or how they can use 'em.
David Hopkins: Yeah, like I was saying, I mean 40 different types. If we had all those individually listed, it would be somewhat of a nightmare come box day, delivery day, trying to pack all those up. Like, Oh, I gotta run over here and get a handful of this pepper, or, you know, they didn't want this and then trying to keep it all organized when we're out doing deliveries. It would just, it'd be a lot tougher on us, but in the future it could be something that we need to lean more towards just to keep our customers happy [00:05:00] and make 'em coming back for more, really.
Rory Loughran: Does, I know you mentioned it kind of helps streamline operations. How does it do that? How is this easier for you guys and have you tried other systems that have been more work, that kind of have led you to lean on this way?
David Hopkins: Be honest with you I hadn't tried doing, by the piece or by, you know, this person wants a handful of tomatoes and a pepper and this three items or whatever. Just to keep it more simple, you know, I can get, I just, before I came in here, I made a call cuz they're starting to load the truck to go to the Farmer's Market tonight with the stuff we've picked today.
And I told our guy that loads the trucks, I said, "You need to save me this many tomatoes, this many boxes of pepper, this many boxes of eggplant." So I have all that stuff ready for me in the morning when I'm packing boxes so I don't have to, you know, go get, you know, I just need 20 of these pepper, you know, then I busted open a box and I'm not gonna use the whole thing and I feel like it's wasting more than it would do good at the moment.
Rory Loughran: Yeah, yeah, definitely. How [00:06:00] do customers typically respond or what has been the general response since you guys started doing this offering, I guess, that you guys have in the store and how you have prioritized bundles and subscriptions.
How do people kind of react to those?
David Hopkins: I think of people, they've enjoyed the offering that we've given 'em with the bundles. We change up the produce as much as we can. When it's in the heart of our busy season, you're pretty much guaranteed to get tomatoes, pepper, and squash or something, cuz we're picking that and I'm gonna definitely put what I got in there first.
And then, I think they've enjoyed that. They hadn't had too many trouble. And like I was saying, with the subscriptions, they keep coming back and either forget to cancel it or they're enjoying it enough that they wanna keep going. So we just keep letting it ride.
Rory Loughran: Yeah, that's awesome. I know you mentioned you guys sometimes do one off, if somebody's asks for just a box of tomatoes or if somebody says they don't want eggplant. How do you guys kind of handle those inquiries about a la carte options or [00:07:00] customizations and is that something, I guess, that you're trying to move away from?
David Hopkins: Oh no, I'm not trying to move away from that at all. I love people that want a whole box of something. That's fairly easy. We're selling it to everybody else, so they're more than welcome to buy it too. Anywhere we can get a box sold that we might not sell otherwise is money ahead for us. So we're happy to do it. I don't mind people buying anything by the whole box. It's actually great.
Rory Loughran: Yeah. What about, do folks ever reach out and they give you like a specific order? Like, "I want five tomatoes, I want this many of this, I meant this many of this." How do you kind of deal with those inquiries? Do you ever get 'em or do you just kind of direct them towards those bundles?
David Hopkins: We do get those and then we try to explain to 'em how we're doing things and that we'd be happy to make special requests and fulfill those orders for them. But if you want just three items, you're still gonna pay $30. You're still get a lot of those three items. So the price is pretty much gonna stay the same cuz I have to sell the stuff and I have to have the help, help me pack [00:08:00] 'em and everything. So I gotta kinda stick to my guns a little bit and try to talk 'em into doing something like that.
Rory Loughran: And I'd imagine that's, yeah, that's kind of a good way to go with it. Because that becomes a lot of work. Like you're saying, you wanna make it worth it. So kind of having like that base order, I guess. I guess that's kind of what you've done there, is you basically have an order minimum that if people do want these, a few of these specific products, you can do that, but it's gotta become at a certain amount.
David Hopkins: That's right. You're gonna get the same $30 box that's our half bushel. That's what our go-to is. Everybody enjoys that one. You're gonna get that same box, but if you want the less items, you're still gonna get just a, more of those items in that box by itself compared to the rest of the bundle that would be in there.
Rory Loughran: Awesome. Well, you guys you just mentioned, like the half bushel, you guys offer bundles in three different sizes. And then those same three different sizes are also available in the form of a subscription. So folks can either kind of, you know, do the one time purchase or get it over a period of weeks.
Which option do you find [00:09:00] that customers prefer?
David Hopkins: I think people are still learning about the subscription option. There's a couple that have signed on and we see 'em every week, know 'em, know their family, what dog likes to ride in the car with 'em. It's great seeing 'em every week. We enjoy that. But people are still, people still like to travel and go out of town and stuff, so there's a lot of people that just do it weekly depending on what we have on our list for each week, so they can kinda plan their menus around that.
Rory Loughran: Do you find that it kind of, like, have you seen people doing the single bundle as almost like a trial and then signing up for the subscriptions like, I guess, has having those bundles available led to more subscription customers?
David Hopkins: I think it has. There's people that, you know, "we just wanted to try it out this week" and then you keep seeing 'em every week and then you see their name pop up on the subscription thing. So they're enjoying it enough to spend their money on something that we're offering and we're definitely glad to have 'em and they stick around.
And the one option that I'm [00:10:00] glad that Barn2Door has come out with, was where you could pause your subscription. So if they were to go out town, they don't have to cancel it and then sign back up for it. Sometimes when you cancel something, you know, I would forget to sign back up for it myself.
Rory Loughran: Yeah. Awesome. The other thing I kind of wanted to dive into with how you guys have bundles and subscriptions set up, is pricing. And I know pricing is always tough for Farmers especially when they're offering this bundle of products because you know, you kind of wanna figure out what that total is worth.
And that can be a little bit harder than just individual items. So, how did you decide on that price for your boxes?
David Hopkins: Well, kind of got a story with that. When I was at school at Auburn University, I was a horticulture major, and we went and took a field trip one day to a Farm outside of Auburn. And this man's sole job was a CSA. He had a Farm. He had a little bit of produce, a little bit of [00:11:00] fruit. He had some Satsuma trees. He was growing some broccoli. Even had some ducks and stuff and that was the first time I'd even heard of that. My family's been farming forever. Never heard of that in my life. And I got talking to him. I was like, "Well, what are you doing?" He's like, "Well, I do a CSA and it's 10 weeks and it's $300."
So I just went ahead and said, Well, it's $30 a week. We'll just start our pricing right there when we come back home. So I started doing the haves for $30 and then, I mean, they're getting $30 at the grocery store x2 easy with our box. I mean, it's, we, my mom goes to the grocery every now and then and just checks it and says, "Well, you're still doing good cuz this in the grocery store are so high compared to this and you're giving them plenty of that."
We also, we're selling this stuff every week so we kind of know how much we're gonna get for a box of tomatoes and how much for a box of pepper and stuff like that. So I kinda have an idea and I hadn't changed my price since I started. I think it's fair for everybody and it's fair for [00:12:00] us as the growers, so it's okay way to go.
Rory Loughran: Yeah, that's impressive that you haven't changed the price since you started. Have you guys thought about upping that and I guess, so in addition to that question, so are you thinking about Changing the price in the future at any time? And then also what are the prices of the other cause I know you do the full bushel and then the bag as well.
David Hopkins: So I hadn't really thought about having to go up. I mean, fertilizer this past year went, I think, 60% higher than what it was the year before. It's really been eating a hole in the farm budget, but we got enough money to do it again for the fall. So hopefully when we get done with our fall crop, we'll have enough money to do it again in the spring and the cycle of death will continue but we'll keep on being here.
The pricing for our boxes, so we have three options. We have full bushel box, which is, I say is enough for a family of six. Some of the bigger families, I'm the youngest of four children, so we had a family of six and it'd be enough [00:13:00] for our family when we were growing up. It's $50 a week. And then I have a half bushel box, which I claim is enough for a family of four. It's $30 a week.
And then I have a bag, which I started a couple of years ago. I actually got the idea from another guy that was doing a Farm-to-table thing, and I was packing boxes for him. He had a bag and it's a smaller quantity. It's good for one to two people with your older people that are, you know, empty nesters living by themselves.
It's good for them, and it's $25 for the first week. But I have a reusable shopping bag with my name on the side of it. And if they bring it back to me, the next week's bag is only $20. So it's kind of incentive to come back, you know, you got a $5 bag, bring it back. We'll sell you another for $20.
Rory Loughran: Yeah. That's awesome. And I like, yeah, the kind of having the branded bag, some packaging branding there. And making that almost like a little bit more incentive for somebody to stick around and [00:14:00] keep making that purchase if they've already had the buy in of getting the bag, which is awesome.
I guess beyond that, is there any other kind of incentives that you build out or include for folks signing up for subscriptions versus the bundles? Is there any kind of like, Oh, if you subscribe, you're saving a little bit of money as well?
David Hopkins: No, but that is a really good idea. We might need to look into that. We've done some Facebook ads, Facebook posts, where, you know like and share, get a free week or whatever, a free half bushel box. We've done stuff for teachers, kind of getting them involved.
But, I don't know why I haven't thought about it. Thank you for that idea. I don't know why I haven't thought about that.
Rory Loughran: Yeah, no problem. I'm curious with the teachers, cuz I know sometimes schools are really actually a really great market for Farmers. What kind of stuff have you guys done with teachers?
David Hopkins: Well, we do our deliveries every Thursday in three different towns. And if you're a business, we'll come to your business, but you gotta buy five. But for the teachers, we [00:15:00] decided they can't leave. They don't have any control over what they're doing. They're having to deal with people's children all day long. We might as well help 'em out.
And if there's a teacher at a school that wants one, we'll take it to 'em. And then you're putting it on the desk and the office in there. So all the moms that come in to pick up their kids early or all the teachers that walk by, they can see it. And our box also have our brand on them and website and everything and kinda a little shoe in to get in the door with that, hopefully.
Rory Loughran: Yeah. That's awesome. That's really smart too. You know, maybe some parents will come in and see the box. That's awesome. And then you kind of mentioned there that if five people from a business or something sign up, you guys will then make that like a drop site or kind of add it to your delivery route?
David Hopkins: Yeah, so we started doing deliveries during the pandemic. People just couldn't get outta their house or didn't wanna get outta the house. We've always gone to the schools cuz teachers couldn't get out and go pick 'em up. But then people were at businesses like, "Hey, do you drop off here?"
And I was like, "No, we do not yet. But if you get [00:16:00] five people to sign on, I'll bring 'em there and y'all won't have to pay the delivery fee." So that of an incentive to get, you know, a couple more people, get your co-workers talked into it, and we'll be happy to come and drop 'em off there. Y'all don't have to leave or waste your time during to go pick them up.
Rory Loughran: That's really awesome. I love that idea because that's a great incentive, I guess, is that free delivery, but it also gives you the assurance of making that delivery worthwhile, which is really awesome. And then I was curious with kind of as we're talking about all this other payment things, what do you guys do, I know with the subscriptions feature, there's some different smaller features built into that, so you can do like pay up front, you can do pay as you go with subscriptions. What kind of payment options do you guys allow customers to use?
David Hopkins: I think that pay-as-you-go thing is a new one to me. We'll have to look into that as well. We just, it's all been paid up front, all online ahead of time, and that before we got on Barn2Door, it was show up, I'll give you your box, you give me your [00:17:00] money. And the paying up front really cured some amnesia that some people had.
There was always, you know, one or two people that tended to forget about it every week. But that's kind of slowed 'em down and we still have to run some people down every now and then, and I don't like to, you know, not refund people, but I kinda explained to 'em, "I'm gonna let you slide this time, but you gotta understand that I can't put this stuff back on the bush. Once I take it off it's ready to sell and I can't do anything else with it. So I really need you to meet me or tell me where you're at so I can meet you."
Rory Loughran: Yeah, no, definitely. And I think that is always kind of a hard line to draw, but you kind of have to, because like you said, you can't put it back on the bush. You gotta do something with that product.
Would you have any advice for Farmers that are kind of early on in this, trying to figure out how to set up pricing and manage a program like the one you're doing?
Do you have any advice for how they could go about deciding on a good price for their products?
David Hopkins: You gotta take it and realize that your time is worth something. And these people are, they're [00:18:00] wanting a new experience. They've been going to the grocery store, looking at the produce and the produce section, or the meat and the meat section, and you're adding an extra value to it and you need to see that they're getting an added bonus know where it's coming from, knowing that it's a good investment on their part. You're growing a food that you're feeding to your family every day and there should be no worries coming behind that, and that should be the added value to your price.
Rory Loughran: Definitely. Yeah. And then in terms of, I know you've mentioned a little bit of delivery and we talked about how if you get a certain amount of people at one location, they get that free delivery. But what is your regular delivery fee? What are you guys charging for delivery?
David Hopkins: We have a radius set up on Barn2Door, so where people can go. It's $10 a stop. So, I mean, gas has gotten ridiculously high, but we've stuck to $10 and we're gonna leave it there. We don't wanna put a hurting on people more than we have to.
But, we also gotta get a little bit for [00:19:00] our time and driving around town. One of the towns we go to, Tallahassee, that's a big town. It's the capital of Florida, as everybody knows, but is a, you know, you can spend 45 minutes driving to one side of town to drop off one box. So we kept it at $10 and I think it's worth our time and worth the people's time if they don't want to drive over to the central location to meet us.
Rory Loughran: Yeah, definitely. And has that fee always, it's always been $10, you guys have kind of kept that the same and if so, are you, have you guys thought about raising that? Cause I know gas prices have gone up a lot and as you've kind of said, your program has grown too, which I think probably means more deliveries.
David Hopkins: It has. It actually started at $5 and this was the third or fourth week of the pandemic and everything was crazy. And I think one week we got over 150 or 200 something stops. So it was insane. And I said, We're gonna have to weed out a couple of these stops. Let's put $10 [00:20:00] on it. And I think next week we did the same thing. So I should have went up one more time, but I just kept it at $10.
Rory Loughran: That's awesome. How have people kind of reacted to the delivery fee? Because I know sometimes people get upset about those. But it, from that story, it sounds like people are perfectly fine with the extra $5. Have you guys gotten any responses on the delivery fee?
David Hopkins: I think we had one person that was upset with it when we first started doing deliveries and ended up raising the price a little bit. She was living south of town in Tallahassee and it was that one that was, 30 minutes, 45 minutes outta the way. And when, we were doing, like I said, 100, 150 stops and trying to get that many people, I'm not UPS, I don't have a big box truck to deliver all this stuff.
And I had to recruit my mom, my brother, my wife, my dad, everybody that had a driver's license and a last name Hopkins was in a vehicle delivering boxes those weeks. And I think it was just that one person that was kind of upset about it. But we hated to see her go, [00:21:00] but we were just doing the best we could at the time.
Rory Loughran: Yeah, definitely. And I like that you, you brought on the whole team to help you guys manage the deliveries at the time. That's great. I think there's a couple things I really like that you said there. One being, it's usually not a lot of people that are opposed to a delivery fee. I think people are pretty accustomed to those at this point. But also that, you kind of earlier you talked about, you make sure you're getting paid for the time.
Why is charging a delivery fee been something that's been important for the operations of your business and specifically the operation of your delivery program?
David Hopkins: Well, I mean, you just have to realize that your time, besides all the blood, sweat, and tears you're putting into these crops, your time is worth something on top of that. So you're getting a little bit for picking it and growing it and harvesting it and getting it to the consumer. You're gonna have to get just a little bit more when you get in that car and drive the extra little distance to meet 'em somewhere if they can't come meet you.
I don't mind doing deliveries. Sometimes delivery's easier than waiting an [00:22:00] hour or two hours on some of our stops where we're set up just waiting for people to come. It's, you know, you can get done a little bit faster and get back to what you need to be doing on the Farm if you just go fill up the car of deliveries and take off, deliver 'em, and get back.
Rory Loughran: Yeah. Kind of more on your own schedule, which is really nice. What would be your advice, I guess kind of going back to we started this talking about, you guys have such a streamlined inventory and how that really helps your guys' operations and keep things smooth when you stick to those kind of limited product offerings.
What would be your advice to Farms that, that have really large inventories in their online store, where it is pages and pages of inventory? What would you say to them to maybe like, point out, I guess, what you guys are doing and how that can work?
David Hopkins: My advice would be if they have the time and the organizational skills to manage a larger inventory, more power to 'em. But, you know, like I was saying when we first started this podcast, I just got off a tractor just in time to come in here and talk with you and from my standpoint, it [00:23:00] doesn't seem like it would be something that would be beneficial to me or my customers.
Cause I would just be running around like a crazy chicken with my cut off, trying to figure out where your box went when I packed it with three items in there instead of the normal bundle that it is.
Rory Loughran: Yeah, definitely. No, and I think a lot of folks will relate to that. I think it's very common that Farmers don't have a lot of extra time. And so, being able to simplify this part of your business and make things easier, one on the upfront work of putting all this stuff in the store, but then also on the backend work of when people are placing orders and you're not having to assemble a bunch of different customized orders. You can kind of just stick to a few basics, which can be really helpful.
Well, David, thanks so much. I guess as kind of a final question for you, what is, I know you're in the middle of harvesting but what is next at Hopkins Farms? What do you guys kind of have on your radar before we kind of close out the year here?
David Hopkins: Well, we're, like I said, we're about to finish up picking peanuts. We don't have any cotton this time. We [00:24:00] got done with all our corn. About to really start really hard into the tomatoes and the pepper and here comes Thanksgiving and we'll start cutting collards through the New Years. And that's always been something we've really made our year on just cutting greens.
But in the future for Hopkins Farms, me and my brother have sat down and we really want to get direct to consumer meat business started up and we have a bunch of cows. We got a butcher lined up. We're just trying to get all the pieces in place to start doing that. Get all the government paperwork stuff out of the way and just get on to where we can do something like that.
Cause we really enjoy the people and enjoy, you know, being able to support them and bring them stuff that they want and need. And people been always asking me, you know, "when y'all gonna get some meat on this Barn2Door thing?" So we, we're hoping we can do that in the next year.
Rory Loughran: That's awesome. That's really exciting and I'll look forward to hearing you from that. We'll definitely have to have you back on to talk about the progress you guys are making there and even how that process [00:25:00] works of getting all that set up.
Thanks so much for joining us, David. I appreciate it.
David Hopkins: Thank you Rory. Thank you for having me.
Rory Loughran: I wanted to extend my thanks to David for joining us on this week's podcast episode. Here at Barn2Door we're humbled to support thousands of Farms across the country, including farms like Hopkins Farms. We're honored to get the opportunity to learn from these most successful Farms who are sharing the tactics, the resources, and the tools they're using to grow and manage their Farm.
If you would like to connect with David and any other Farm Advisors you can attend Barn2Door Connect, so you can register for those weekly sessions at barn2door.com/connect. For more information on Hopkins Farms, you can follow them on Instagram. Their handle is @Hopkins_FarmtoTable.
Thank you for tuning in. We'll see you next time.
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