Big Berry Farm makes fast, successful shift from Farmer Markets to Online Orders & Home Delivery
Angelica Hayton is a fifth generation farmer who owns and runs Hayton Farms Berries, located on Fir Island in Skagit Valley, Washington. Angelica shares about how her farm adapted to COVID-19 and found great success, by beginning to offer pre-orders and home deliveries. Also sharing with us her exciting journey to grow a rare Pink Lemonade Blueberry!
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Angelica: [00:00:00]
The things that I didn't think I'd want to do ended up being right, and getting a lot of business that just wouldn't have been there. Like the people that wanted the home deliveries, if I'd been like, "Oh, I'm sorry, we don't do that". Like that person, wasn't going to go to a farmer's market and buy our half flat.
They just, would've not bought from us. So it seemed like because of COVID adapting to what people needed, if all they needed was the peace of mind that they pre-ordered and their pickup is going to be ready and they don't have to pay whether it was that or the home and delivery, like adapting to those different things.
[MUSIC]
Emma: [00:01:05]
All right. Welcome back, everyone. You are listening to the Direct Farm Podcast. It is nearly November, which is incredible, in part, because we are even closer to the conference coming up on November 10th, it is the Direct Farm Series on Brand. And if you've been listening to the podcast, you know, we have these four levers for farm success, and those are Quality, Brand, Price and Convenience.
This coming conference is going to focus totally on Brand. And ahead of the off season when customers are really looking to connect and build loyalty, maybe even gift to their friends and family from your farm. This is a great opportunity to build some relationships, whether you're selling seasonally or year round.
And so today I want to introduce you to Angelica Hayton. She will be speaking at that conference. If you listened to our episode a couple of weeks ago with Grace Lemley you heard a reference to Angelica because Grace worked for her for awhile at Hayton Farms Berries, and it was fun to get to then talk to Angelica and hear more about Hayton Farms Berries, the Farm, her role in expanding their production and going to more markets. And then the ways that they adapted to continue serving customers through the COVID pandemic.
So it's an absolute pleasure to talk to Angelica. I hope you enjoy this conversation i'll let her go ahead and introduce herself.
Angelica: [00:02:26]
So I'm the fifth generation to Farm in our family. so I grew up on the same Farm where I'm working now. And when I was a kid, my dad started doing like strawberries, but it was for processing. And then like my sisters and I started off to sit a roadside stand selling just at the end of our driveway.
And then when I was in high school, one of our neighbors started, a different Farmer, was started doing Farmer's Markets and he was the one that was like, Hey, you guys should try out Pike Place market on the weekend. And we started going down there. The, my, I have two older sisters and then. It was like the year after that, the same neighbor was like, Oh, University District Market is looking for some more Farmers.
And that was where we got our start was at the University District. And then that organization as it grew and added more markets we would add on with them. we started with just our plan of " Oh, these markets are like a really good business going direct to retail instead of wholesale."
And we, you started it. actually planting varieties just for like fresh market and farmer's markets. And that I got really interested in that and, ended up, I started doing the markets when I was like 15. So I've been doing them for like 20 years. And when I like, yeah, when I got out of college, my sisters quit to do other things.
And I was like, Oh, this is what I want to do. and I got my dad took transition over organic cause I felt like that's really, that's what I wanted, but also what, like everyone in Seattle at the Farmer's Markets, they were asking for certified organic and that's how we got started with the Farmer's Markets.
Emma: [00:04:14]
I was curious to hear from Angelica, having taken over a part of the business from her parents and taking on more of a leadership role in the business, what changes she made and where she focused their efforts. In order to continue growing and serving more markets
Angelica: [00:04:29]
So yeah, when I was, younger and just starting out, we just did strawberries and raspberries and the season at the farmer's markets was really short. We'd start in like early June. And then, even by the end of like mid August, Raspberries would be finishing. And so then I was like, okay, once I realized, this is what I want to do, even when I'm done with school, I was like, Oh, we need to extend our season and we need more variety.
So I would always be like looking for like new varieties, different things to make our booth different, but also extend our season. We planted blueberries and blackberries, but then we started. Just planting a lot of different varieties of raspberries and blackberries and to extend the season.
So now, we can start sometimes like mid may and go till sometimes the end of October with fresh fruit we used to just do. Like one type of raspberry and now we'll have six varieties to fill in all the gaps. And, we grow yeah, like yellow and black raspberry and Tay and Logan Berry. And we tried to get a lot of, more like specialty items.
Emma: [00:05:43]
One of those novelty items are Pink Lemonade Berries so i asked to Angelica about growing them and then ultimately about marketing them too because they have such an intriguing name.
Angelica: [00:05:52]
I'm really excited about those. I want to plant more.
I was very excited about the flavor of the Pink Lemonade Blueberries, because yeah, I felt like they were really sweet and maybe like less acidic. They were like, just very different. It didn't taste like just eating like a blueberry. I was like, Oh yeah, this is special.
I posted on Instagram and Facebook about it, and then we hardly had any. So it was almost just like this tease, like people would be like emailing and calling and I'd be like, no, we just had them like that one day. That was it.
I planted them in 2016 and like the first two years you have to like strip off the blooms to get the plant like bigger and stronger.
And then. Last year should have been the first year we got to pick, but it con, the variety completely froze out. They're pretty sensitive. And so we didn't have any last year. And then this was the first year. There was like a small crop and. It was like the first year I'd even tried one, like the other years there was, I didn't even see one Pink Berry.
I'd be like, Oh my God, do these exist? Is it real? And then yeah, this year it was so cool. And the plants put on so much growth this year. but I do feel like they're going to start giving a better crop and they're so fun people like went wild for them.
Emma: [00:07:17]
I asked Angelica if the Pink Lemonade Berries were then her favorite Berry and if not what were, it seemed like an important question.
Angelica: [00:07:24]
And my favorite fairy, I would have to say it's kind of a hard question, but I mean, I probably, I love blueberries and I love the Blue Crop Blueberries. they're really big and sweet. But I also really like our Albion Strawberries. I'd say those are my two favorite. I, although now that I know the Pink Lemonade, I would say they're up there on my favorite list.
Emma: [00:07:51] So having learned a little bit more about Hayton Farm's berries and about Angelica, including her favorite Berry. I wanted to turn and hear about what sales looked like before COVID. Obviously they were attending a bunch of Farmers Markets and that was their main focus. But I wanted to hear from Angelica, what the restrictions and the pandemic. How that affected the Farmer's Markets and how they then transition their sales so they were able to continue selling.
Angelica: [00:08:17]
Before COVID hit, we, yeah, like I said, most of my sales are like all based at Farmer's Markets and did not have any way for customers to pre-order or prepay, people in the past we would call an email like, Oh, you're always sold out of strawberries. Can I like pre-order and pre-pay?
And have you reserve? People would ask me all the time and I'd be like, "sorry, it's just got to get there. Like first come first serve." I felt like we're at maybe 60 markets a week. I just didn't feel like there'd be a way for me to keep organized and keep everything straight. So I would never do it. And then, yeah, when COVID hit and well, markets were all shut down and we didn't really know if they were going to open or how many were going to open. it was like a very quick thing of like Farms felt like, we need a way to accept pre-orders and pre-pay and the home delivery was definitely something a lot of people were talking about.
For most people it's like a hard thing to figure out like how to accept online payment. most Farmers, a lot of them take square in person, but you know, if you're trying to take lots of orders, it's not like you want to, like on the phone, be like manually entering in credit card.
I remember telling my dad and my partner, who I work with. I feel like I need to do something or I'm going to like just fall behind of like people had, some people are going to adapt to this and then some people aren't.
And I, I did feel like Barn2Door was the perfect fit. I was looking at three different services that were a little, all a little different and I am really happy. I went with Barn2Door because the website they made was. Amazing, but I love how it integrated the store so much to the website.
Whereas like some of the other companies they wouldn't give you a website. It would maybe just be a link to a store. And then some of the other ones I was looking at were just a way to take a payment on your old website, but this was a whole package deal. And I did feel like for what was needed all of a sudden during COVID like, Oh my gosh, I need to be able to have things like organized by market and day and holdings orders. and I need to be able to take payment and I do need to figure out home delivery. It just like somehow took care of everything. And so then yeah, things, at Farmer's Markets, things changed like there were less shoppers and having this way to promote Hey, you can prepay, pre-order, and you will be, if you do want to come to the market, you're going to be there less time just picking up your order.
You won't be like doing any payment exchange at the market. And. It was nice. Like even though on Saturday, maybe we'd be going to 15 markets. like how the orders are organized on Barn2Door. It was really easy for me. Like I just kinda got in the habit of every day after 10:00 AM, I would print out the orders for the next day and organize them.
And that was something that always scared me of thinking. How am I going to organize all these different markets and pre-orders, but it became just Oh, a new task I did every day. It was like, and it was super easy, super efficient. My kids, like all my employees, I print out their sheets and put it with their till and like, okay, you have three pre-orders today and make sure you set this aside, don't sell it like, and so that worked in greatly what we needed. people really wanted it and they were, customers were so happy with being, having this option. And then there was still the people that really didn't want to leave their home. And that's where the like, home delivery came in and it was awesome. Like I said, we had a handful of really good markets that never even opened for us this year.
So not only was it. Another outlet, like twice a week for us to move fruit that we were , normally counting on that volume too, like that we'd be able to move. But it also like for the people that didn't feel comfortable going to a market, which a lot of people didn't. It's, you know, still gave people a way to get like the home delivery.
I'd like, yeah, I'll get the route already for her the day before with and, like print out her sheets and it worked great. Customers were so happy. We went from just starting with North Seattle to like, including like the East side of Bellevue, Kirkland and. It ended up being something she could manage. it would be a full day for her, what she wanted. So she'd sometimes clock eight or nine hours on Wednesday and Friday, but it turned, yeah, it was great.
We did these, like mixed pack subscriptions where people could pay for five weeks and what we started at late in the season. I think for next year, I saw how well it worked, , I want to add on maybe. Two more days of like deliveries and a different like some other zip codes and start the subscriptions earlier.
And so I would definitely want to promote the subscriptions more next year and add other types of subscriptions. Cause we just didn't try it out one. And it worked really well and add on, I definitely want to add deliveries more than twice a week.
So it was funny. The things that I didn't think I'd want to do ended up being right, and getting a lot of business that just wouldn't have been there. Like the people that wanted the home deliveries, if I'd been like, Oh, I'm sorry, we don't do that. Like that person, wasn't going to go to a Farmer's market and buy our half flat They just, would've not bought from us. So it seemed like because of COVID adapting to what people needed, if all they needed was the peace of mind that they pre-ordered and their pickup is going to be ready and they don't have to pay whether it was that or the home and delivery, like adapting to those Different things.
it seemed at first, like it would be really hard, but I would definitely recommend people Barn2Door just because it wasn't like I had to figure it out on my own. There was like that the weekly zooms and figuring it out little by little helps. And I would recommend people not wait till they need it in and their busy season is starting maybe it is a slow time for people right now, but.
and there maybe it's like going into fall and winter. That'd be a good time for Farms to sign up so they can, have all this time to figure it out before they get busy. And then their store would be like ready to go when their busy season starts.
Emma: [00:15:15]
My next question for Angelica was about inheriting a brand and then making it her own. I wanted to know what the Hayton Farm's Berries brand was, what it meant. And how then she was able to take it online.
Angelica: [00:15:26]
It was my parents' businesses is Hayton Farms, and that's how we started under Hayton Farms. And then, 12 years ago. I kind of wanted to like branch off.
I still work a lot with my dad, but I wanted to do my own business instead of being under his business. I was like, okay, I want to just do the Farmer's Markets. I want to just do Berries and really focus on that. Where he does a lot more wholesale and vegetables too. So then I did the business, like Hayton Farms Berries opened up that separately. And it was nice because since I'm a fifth generation, it's still used like Hayton Farms in the name because so many people had known that at the markets. but I couldn't really come up with a different name for my business because no one would have known what it was, but I would say using that helps people already knew our name, Hayton Farms, but more just focusing in on the berries, I would say now, Because we have this online presence and like the option for home deliveries, we are trying to figure out ways now to extend our season even more.
So we've gotten into like frozen berries and then my partner and I do a eggs and beef and pork. So we are going to try and keep going on Barn2Door and offer other things to extend the season. But I think that is something that we'll take a little bit of time to build up that, like people only know us as like fresh berries right now.
Once you're set up online with the store and Barn2Door, I feel like it's a good opportunity to, try new things. Once you have the online platform. Yeah, I'd say, customers and people in general are on social media so much, especially if less people were, unless people were shopping at markets.
It did seem like it was important to post more this year, as far as just like what new varieties are coming out, what new products, what, yeah. What were you, what were we going to start picking and have at market soon and what was really nice with the, Instagram, just click your on your link tree, the link in the bio and then your farm store was like link was there, your website link was there. And even on Facebook be able to link to the shop now on Facebook. not that many people are going to just like randomly type in my website, HaytonFarmsBerries.com. But between people maybe looking on Instagram or Facebook, the website and the store through Barn2Door. It was easy to put those like points and other places to just get more traffic and it seemed, it just all work together really well.
Emma: [00:18:14]
That's awesome. Awesome. and I think that's true. That's something we talk about a lot too, is that your website is great. It helps people learn about you if they are directed to it, but not a lot of people are just gonna find it organically. So on the Facebook and Instagram side, you guys have this really like cheery presence.
I'm curious, how do you feel like you took people's experience at Farmer's Markets or with Hayton Farms Berries and moved it online. Do you feel like people are getting a similar experience or they're having similar feelings as if they were purchasing from you in person?
Angelica: [00:18:49]
I feel like the social media is a great way for if you have people that are following you too, learn more about the farm what's going on behind the scene and they still get to know you more as far as what you're into and what you're taking your photos of.
it's great to get people excited about something new and wanna purchase your product, but I feel like more so it's customers just feel good knowing where their food's coming from. Like the people that are going to go to a farmer's market or spend money to buy a local shop local, they want to know about you and feel like it's a good purchase coming from a good place.
And so it, I do like to post for the customers that they aren't going to be able to come up to the Farm stand, but they could still see the Farm and where we're located and all that.
Emma: [00:19:40]
If you listen, you know, that we love to ask people about time-savings. So I asked Angelica what's some of her most time-saving. You know advice would be to other farmers both in terms of just running a business and in building a brand online.
Angelica: [00:19:53]
Yeah, I would say for time-saving on the end of, like Barn2Door, like online, the online pre-orders and the home deliveries. I'd say for me, it worked best to have a routine that I did every day.
So I wasn't doing it last minute or in a panic the day of. Like my, you can set when you want your order cutoff to be. And mine is 10:00 AM the day before. So like a lot of times in the morning, I'm working on stuff at my computer and I'd be looking for one, it was going to be 10 o'clock.
Cause I could be like, All right. I'm going to go in there. I'm going to get the orders for tomorrow, print it off, organized to get a route made if it was a delivery day. And it always felt really good to just get it done the day before. Have it ready to go. So the next day, you have kids sometimes showing up at 5:30 or 6:00 in the morning. and things were just like ready. Like I wasn't ever Oh my gosh, I forgot to send them with their pre-orders or I forgot to do this. That would, is what I would always recommend to people is just try and get like a routine and like where you get it done the day before.
So then you're that next day is already to go and it like runs smoothly. As far as this like social media side of things to try and save time, You know, if I was maybe driving, not driving myself, but in the passenger seat, like I would, a lot of times then try and do my posting, or social media stuff, when I was like, had some downtime and wasn't busy doing something else.
Emma: [00:21:25]
My last question for Angelica was that if she could go back a year ago, and give herself a piece of advice what would it be?
Angelica: [00:21:33]
I definitely would have done it sooner, not just oh a couple months before my market season started, but just I would have liked to start this years ago just because now seeing like how it's really opened up a lot of opportunities.
I'm like, Oh man, like we were really missing out all those other years. And people had always asked me like, Oh wait, I see you deliver to restaurants if it's over 700 flats, could you deliver to my house? And I was always like, Oh no, I just couldn't really figure out like, the logistics and how I would do all that and keep organized.
But now with Barn2Door, I'm like, Oh man, I wish I'd started this years ago and been offering home delivery and the pre-orders because it is what customers want. Even the customers that like to go to farmer's markets, a lot of times, depending on when we are in the season and what variety it is, we don't have this like unlimited supply.
And we're always going to have a stock table. A lot of times we'll maybe sell out of one thing halfway through the market. And if someone doesn't get off work till a certain time, people want to, even if they're going to go market pre-order and have it set aside. And we were just never able to offer that, but like with Barn2Door, it made it really easy.
And people were just happy to be like the feedback we got from people pre-ordering or getting and delivery where they were just so happy that it was available to them now. And it made me feel good. Not having to turn people down. And yeah, I would just say, for people that maybe feel intimidated by taking on something new. I would say that's legit because I totally felt intimidated by doing all these new things. And now I'm like, Oh man, that's awesome. It went smoothly and I should have done it earlier.
Emma: [00:23:34]
So again, that was Angelica Hayton from Hayton Farms Berries. If you want to hear more from her, the ways that they transitioned to pre-orders for markets, direct home delivery, and really push hard on that brand presence online and the ways that you can then do the same things for your farm business.
Please join us at the Direct Farm Series Brand Conference coming up on November 10th. It is totally free and totally virtual. And you can register at directfarmconference.com.
Join us next week to hear about storytelling as a part of building your brand online.
Thanks for listening. We'll talk to you next week.