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As you are hopefully by now aware, we have tons of blueberries for you this week. And eating these berries over the weekend has brought two things to my mind that I want to share with you.

First is the incredible journey that these berries have made to get to your plate. We have known Carey in LaRue TX for many years now. He grows an amazing blueberry in the acidic soil near Dallas. You see blueberries love to grow in acidic soils that can only come in areas of large rainfall (Oregon, WA, Michigan, and LaRue TX). So needless to say the measly 7-8″ of rain that we get around the Land of Entrapment, just ain’t gonna cut it for blueberries. So we have to bring them in from somewhere.

And so when we have to look outside our area, there is only one question that we look to answer; who is growing the best around? That is how we found Carey. A mutual friend of ours had some of his berries that he let me try. Oh man, those are the ones. So 10 years ago our blueberry grower became a staple for our summertime boxes to look forward to.

The berries are harvested fresh into the afternoon, placed onto a farm van, and driven throughout the night to our doors by 6am the next morning. I have no doubt in saying that you will not be able to find a fresher berry anywhere in the state. Compare that to the store’s berries that are often grown in Chile, put onto a cargo freighter, and then shipped for a week to a port in Los Angeles. Only then does it begin the trip to the store. The differences between the systems and the products are huge and you can taste the difference. So enjoy my friends.

But the berries got me thinking about something else this weekend too and that was the size of fruit that we expect. This summer I have been looking at the produce that stores are selling (gotta see what the Joneses are up to right?) What I have noticed is that the fruit is huge. I mean grapes and cherries that look as big as a ping pong balls.

At first it is hard not to look at them and say “Wow! those look amazing.” But then the realist in my brain is like, “Dude, what the heck, those aren’t supposed to grow that big.” And the only way to get fruit that big is to dump water onto your fields to fatten up your fruit. With all of that excess and unneeded water on your fields though, you know what your fruit tastes like? Yup, water.

So what a conundrum for the grower, do we want great flavor or huge fruit? And we know how most of the grocery stores answer that question. This takes us back to what I was pointing out in the newsletter a couple weeks ago, we need to savor the flavor. We need to celebrate the taste of the fruit over its sight. So I encourage (ok beg) you to try and enjoy the cherries and blueberries and other incredible fruits that we bring you by themselves. Avoid crazy sauces and other toppings that can distract from what the fruit has to say.

I felt like I was at a wine tasting this weekend. I sat in my backyard with a bowl of Paul’s cherries and ate them one by one trying to discern the different flavors between the cherries and the different colors of the fruit. Sure it was dorky. But it was simple, quiet, and delicious. And you know what, those cherries are just as dark and complex as a good glass of wine. So let the fruit speak for itself.

In that, please try and not eat your fruit refrigerated. Sure refrigerate it for longer storage if you need to. But take the fruit out of the ice box before you plan to eat it to let the sugars relax a bit. The cold temp of the fruit will lock up the flavors. So do yourself a favor and plan ahead a bit with these babies.

Other than that this fine summer week, look for the Shiro Plums from Excelsior Orchards to be coming in next week. These are the yellow skinned Japanese plums that always are a favorite with our customers and chefs.

–Farmer Monte

Items to look for this week…Peaches, Plums, Asparagus, Berries, Grapes, and much more.

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The Market

One thing that I have seen over and over in the marketplace is that nothing ever stays the same. Not so long ago, Blockbuster Video had an entire College Football Bowl game named after them, fast forward 10 years and kids these days will never step foot in a video store their entire lives. Businesses have to be thinking about what is coming around the bend or they will end up a speed bump to the speeding semi truck that we call Progress. Demands change, lives change, and so businesses have to change in order to be relevant as calendar pages turn.

And I have to tell you that a year ago when Amazon bought Whole Foods I felt a major shock-wave go through the small farm movement that I had been a part of for over 15 years. I knew at the time and still firmly believe today that after the buyout of Whole Foods, our Organic food industry was in for a wild ride. And it has not disappointed. The last year has seen some of the most challenging times food providers have seen in probably 50 years.

So I have spent very little time over this last year reminiscing about the past. It has been a daily puzzle to think about where the movement is going and where the heck are the opportunities in this changing market? How does a small group of producers play the game in a world of giants? What is our competitive advantage that has not only brought us 15 years into this movement but will also propel us for the next decade and beyond. I have never liked/wanted to chase the “fad” of the Buy Local buttons and bumper stickers. For me this small farm movement goes a lot deeper than a sticker.

Our aim is to change the way our community eats and perceives food. I don’t want a really successful day at the market on one Saturday, I want to feed your grand-kids years from now and not just you today (no offense). Admittedly, this is not an easy task. But as my Norwegian grandpa used to say, “If it was easy, the Swedes would have already figured it out.”

So this daily grind to bring a better food landscape to our neighbors and families cannot be willy-nilly or random. We have to be laser focused on the mission. So I want to plant this seed with you today and share with you the vision of where we will be heading moving forward.

And just as you would begin any journey, we have to start with a goal in mind and then work backwards from there. We cannot launch our road-trip without even knowing where in the world we are going. So with that, there is a notion that I feel keeps coming back to my future vision of our food landscape and that is Experience.

You see if we view the world like Amazon, everything comes down to price and convenience. That is great and that marketing pitch speaks to a lot of people in this country. But you know what, Convenience is freaking uninspiring and boring. So the idea is that if we have this incredible force of Convenience/Prices in our marketplace, there must be the counterpoint. So what is the antithesis to Convenient anonymity? Yup, you guessed it, Experience.

So the next chapter for Skarsgard Farms in our community will be a mission rooted in Experience. Then a hand pops up in the front row, “But Farmer M., dude, how do you cultivate an Experience for people through home delivery?” Great question Ted (Ted is my go-to fictitious name for the over-achieving student who sits in the front row btw).

The short answer is that we cannot fully incorporate an experiential shopping/learning opportunity through the home delivery service by itself. We need more. We need better.

And that is why we are moving. Moving? Yes moving. We have an absolutely incredible opportunity to launch the next phase of our mission. The new space (and I am going to hold you in suspense for a bit before we tell you all about it) will be our new headquarters not only for the home delivery, but also for a retail market concept that we have been brainstorming and designing.

It will be home for cooking classes, plant sales, gardening classes, wine/cider/beer tastings, farmers’ market, local baked goods, meats from our ranchers, fresh coffee, chile roasting, juices and a slew of other items that we are putting together. Basically a year-round hub to highlight all of the amazing flavors that our state does so well. This place will be our final exam that we have been building on for the last 15 years.

Thank you for the years of support, Farmer Monte

I’m Hungry, Take Me To the Web Site

Recipe Idea: Green Chile Stew

Quick note on our Harvest Boxes and Dinner Bag. For several months we have been offering meal “kits” to help you plan and cook easy, delicious, and healthy meals at home. I have liked the idea of these for a while, but I have to tell you that I have not loved them. No goosebumps when I talk about them. This week, that changed for me and I have had a very profound Ah-ha moment. Don’t you love when those happen?

The root issue of why I haven’t Loved them is that they have been too rigid. A menu filled with items. No customization. So if you have onions at home and do not need them in your meal kit? It has been “too bad, you are getting more of them.” And I hate feeling like I am force feeding our members. You all are adults and know what you need. So I shouldn’t have to make you get anything you don’t want. If you want a vegetarian option for the recipe, we should have it. If you hate garlic, I won’t pass judgement (ok, well maybe just a little).

So let me introduce you to this idea of Harvest Box 3.0 or whatever version we are up to now.

This may not surprise you, but people love our Harvest Boxes. If Harvest Boxes ran for mayor, they might just make the run-off. Over 90% of our orders have a sexy Harvest Box included. It is a fun way to shop and it is the backbone of what we do. The first week we opened our CSA model in June 2003, we had one item you could buy…The Harvest Box. No bread, beef, eggs, or hard cider at that time. Just the HB!

So what we are going to do now is keep the bones of the Harvest Box but add the option to include items to make weekly recipes that we suggest. Let me give you an example for this week since I love examples.

As we look at the wonderful bounty that is coming in from the local fields right now, it is impossible for me not to think about green chile stew. Fresh meats. Potatoes. Onions. Chile. Tomatoes. Seeing all of that, my mind goes to my crock pot and starts making stew. But some folks want a Veg stew. Some folks want extra meat. Some folks love cilantro.

So it works like this. 1) The base Harvest Box will NOT change. It will be all produce just as it has been for the last 14 years. 2) We will offer “suggested” recipes for the week. These recipes are just suggested ideas. You can look at them or not. Totally up to you. 3) If the recipe looks interesting to you, we will have those items as Options that you can add in your Harvest Boxes.

To follow my example through here 🙂 Say Green Chile Stew looks interesting to you, then you will have the ability to add items (like meats, extra veggies or tortillas, etc) to your Harvest Box to help you make the suggested recipe. Again, I cannot stress this enough because I always get hammered with emails when I make changes… But all of these items will be Options for you to take advantage of and nothing forced on you. We will simply be using the recipe ideas to help “seed” your creative flare in the kitchen. What you do with those suggestions is completely up to you.

Additionally, many of our members have asked (ok begged) to bring more staples back to the Harvest Boxes. So this week you will also see the return faces of dairy to the mix. Milks, cream, and I even threw in chocolate milk to the mix because I know how much my kiddos love the chocolate milk.

All in all, I really want to make the Harvest Box a better cooking/eating/shopping experience. If you have ideas or items that you would like to see in the Harvest Box options, please let me know. I will say though that everything that we add as an option needs to help support our Local agriculture producers. So sugars and flours will not be coming back to the table. Although you can still get those items in The Storehouse section of the web site. Let’s highlight and support all of our local producers, growers, ranchers, and dairy folks.

Thanks for your support and happy arrival of fall. Please do not hesitate to contact me with any comments, concerns, or questions. You can also feel free to share your hopes and dreams with me too!

Farmer Monte

Produce Notes: Red, White, and Blue!
Red strawberries, White Nectarines, and Blueberries headline another phenomenal week.
Tomatoes, spinach, Romaine lettuce, and cukes will be at the party too!

 

The Dinner Bag for the Week

Fresh Pasta with Grape Tomatoes, Lemon, Garlic, Spinach and Shrimp.

Take Me To Your Web Site

In case you were hiking in the Sangre de Cristo Mountains and were without cell service, you know by now that it looks like Amazon will be the proud new owner of Whole Foods Market. So grab a coffee (or beer) and let’s look at what this means for the Organic movement and for the local food folks.

In my opinion, we should not fool ourselves for a single second that Amazon bought the Organic ideas, ethos, or philosophy of Whole Foods; they only bought the real estate. 460 stores worth of real estate to be precise. This is not a purchase of a brand, but it is Amazon’s cannon ball into the deep end to splash the food world and let competitors like Kroger and Wal-Mart know that Amazon is now in the Brick n Mortar food game. Amazon needed room on the Monopoly board game and they just bought Boardwalk and Park Place.

With that, we should read all of these articles about the Whole Foods sale as a death. Not a business sale. Because the company that brought us the Organic movement is gone and will never be coming back.

The Organic movement would not be where it is today without the presence of Whole Foods. Under the “question the status quo” leadership style of founder John Mackey, Whole Foods broke the mold of the unexciting stagnation that the American grocery store had become in the 1980s. Large manufacturers basically pulled the puppet strings of the grocery stores. So every store looked the same as every other grocery store and the food experience became a boring chore.

Whole Foods brought a fresh face to the grocery game. And part of that new look was a champion for Organic farmers and ranchers across the country. Organic became the buzz word in the ’90s which paved the road for the “Buy Local” food craze of the new century. Small Organic farmers driving around in beat-up trucks did not have the marketing influence to get folks to change their routine. People didn’t have choices when shopping and didn’t even know there was an alternative way to shop. Whole Foods planted the seed for consumers to question what was in the food they were eating. The 1990s was agriculture’s renaissance time here in the U.S.

This change of consumer behavior positively impacted farmers/ranchers both big and small in this country. Co-ops, CSAs, Farmers’ Markets, and Farm to Table programs all harvested the benefits of Whole Foods’ marketing campaigns. And for that, I am extremely grateful. We all should be.

But then an amazing thing happened; everything that Whole Foods tried to implement became available to all grocery stores. And the control that they held on Organic products ended. Beginning in January of 2015, Whole Foods became a victim of their own success. Other retailers wanted a piece of the Organic pie and got it. The monopoly was over.

Fast forward two and a half years later, Whole Foods experienced declining sales quarter after quarter. Add that with anxious stockholders and the next thing you know, Jeff Bezos is your boss. Oh, and that Organic ethos that was once the business card of Whole Foods is now in the recycle bin.

OK, so what does all of this mean? As this departure from the Organic ideals leave the company, they will be back-filled with the same products that every other store carries and the focus will solely be price driven. So instead of the manufacturers pulling the puppet strings on the grocery stores, the mega-stores (like Amazon and Wally-Mart) will be the ones calling the shots for the manufacturers. The pressure to cut corners to get the consumer a cheaper product will be so intense that by the end of the day, all we will be left with are cheap products.

It is on days like today when I realize the importance of the work that we do. We will continue to give a voice to the small farms and small producers. We needed someone like Whole Foods to act as a catalyst and bring attention to our work, but we do not need them any more folks. My dad took off the training-wheels on my bike one day and I had to ride that Huffy bike all by myself. Today is the day that the marketplace took off the training wheels for our community.

It is now up to all of us to support the local food producers or our food diversity will just be another casualty in this giant grocery consolidation that is shaping up.

Farmer Monte

Quick Note: We have morphed our first recipe kit (The Enchantment Box) into a little thing that we like to call “The Dinner Bag” Pretty catchy little name right? The idea is that we will have 2 dinner plans every week with all ingredients and a cute recipe card included. And you do not have to worry about anything because “It’s in the Bag!” Ah, now you’re following the marketing thread.

We will be expanding on these ideas once we get our feet wet and feel comfortable swimming in the deep end. For this upcoming week, we are running two tasty menu items 1) Mahi Mango Lettuce Wraps, and 2) SKRS Farms Green Chile Sausage Links with Brussels Sprouts, Winter Squash, and Caramelized Onions. Very scrumptious. Y healthy. Check those out online. Less than $7 a serving.

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Food Hours vs Food Miles

Our greenhouse project is finally done and I could not be happier or more excited about this project. You see, in the midst of launching a new web site, adding more delivery routes to help feed more New Mexicans, and restructuring our regional business model, we thought it might be a good time to change the paradigm for how urban agriculture functions. I’ll explain a little bit so that you don’t think I’ve gone mad.

OK, so to lay this discussion out we have to first look at the inherent conundrum that all urban farmers face; you want to be geographically close to your customers, but it is almost impossible to financially grow carrots on residential land prices. Cities have the consumers; rural areas have the land prices. What is the answer?

And first off, let me say that I only know the answer to this question because I failed the test the first go-round. I thought that we could grow crops viably while paying too much for our land. Seeing as how I am a stubborn optimist, it only took me 8 years to realize that I was fighting a losing battle. Our model had to change or the house would have fallen in on itself. We had to reinvent ourselves and the model.

What I quickly realized (after almost a decade) was that we needed to look at every single crop on a case by case basis for its needs and for its financial productivity. What began to come clear is that land extensive crops are not meant for urban growing. Extensive crops I look at are crops that just take a ton of land or space to grow. Corn, potatoes, onions, and fruit trees come to mind off the top of my noggin.

So for this new model, we have to almost concede the fact that those kinds of crops are not meant to be grown in/around the urban areas. We can bring those in from rural parts where land is less expensive and that kind of farming makes sense. So what that leaves us with are land intensive crops. These are crops like greens, lettuces, herbs, roots, etc. that do not need a lot of land to be productive. For example, a head of lettuce needs less than a square foot of space to become full grown. So knowing that space in our urban setting is a premium, we needed to fine-tune our crop plan.
But then working on this new crop plan, a dim flicker of a light went off in my head; these Intensive crops are not only the food that does not need a lot of space, but they are the most perishable of all the food we eat. You would have a hard time telling me if an onion was harvested this week or 3 weeks ago, but you could sure as heck tell me if a head of lettuce was harvested 3 weeks ago. So then, all of the sudden, the local produce game shifted for us. We have already tackled how do you cut food miles from the farm to you, but how can we cut Food Hours from the farm to you?

Wow. This question honestly changes everything. What does a system need to look like in order to cut Food Hours to your plate? The simplest answer is that you need to get your point of distribution as close to your point of production as possible. In an idealistic Farmer M. utopia, the distribution warehouse would be holding hands with your farm. Same place. OK, so let’s try it! That was the feeling in November last year. Fast forward to April and we have finished the greenhouse and now have over 7,000 germinated seeds and baby plants beginning their journey to your plate.

The logistics for this are actually simple (we like simple around here). It plays out like this. Each day as the order cut-off time passes, we head out to the 3,400 square foot greenhouse that is in the parking lot of our warehouse and harvest the needs for that day’s pack. No guess work, no over-harvesting. If we need 300 heads of lettuce, we grab what we need for that pack. Those heads are then brought into the warehouse, prepped, and put into your order that evening for delivery the following day. So you will have fresh food that is no more than 24 hours from harvest when you are eating it.

In total, this greenhouse will be able to comfortably house 15,000 plants at a time (100,000 a year) and be as productive as a 5 acre farm with outdoor production with 10% of the water usage. To say that this will be a real game-changer would be the understatement of the day.

I cannot wait to share more of this project and food with you as we move forward with its potential.

Have a great weekend, Farmer Monte

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What’s In the Harvest Box Next Week?

You Got Any Sales Happening?

I think that we all like to chew on new ideas. From cool new recipes, to interpersonal challenges, to feeding the world, we all have something that invades our thoughts more than everyday musings. And for a long time (over a decade now) I have been haunted by the shadow that good, fresh, healthy, and local foods have to be expensive. When I hear the phrase “Yuppie Food,” I get a pit in my stomach. But then I look at the numbers and they don’t lie. Unfortunately, good food commands a higher price tag.

But does it have to be that way? Do we have to just accept the fact that good food costs more, or is there something that we can do to make better food available to more people? Can we bridge this socioeconomic gap?

I have to tell you on a personal level that I have had maybe 3 major epiphanies in my life. One of them landed me in the middle of a field in 2000 when I realized that the generations of Skarsgard farmers did not skip a generation and I needed to follow the calling. The second one launched our home delivery business in 2003. Now the third one hit me last week. It is a way and The way that we are going to break down financial barriers when it comes to eating well. The paradigm is about to shift for me and consequently for our farm. So I would like to lay this out for you, so buckle up as we take a quick stroll.

First, take off your customer hat and I want you to analyze our situation as an owner of the business. With that, the most expensive part of our service is packing and delivering fresh foods to your door. Scaling up your orders is not expensive. For our packers to double your order size, it might only add a few minutes to their day. For our drivers to double your order it might take them an extra 15 seconds. The only real cost difference between a $25 order and a $100 order is effectively product costs. Fair enough?

So I started to play a little bit with a new type of price structure that Brick n Mortar stores cannot do, a sliding price scale. Let me clarify. A store will run a sale on soap or bananas, but they do not give you price breaks for larger orders. It is a linear pricing structure where you pay the same for a tomato whether it is the only thing you buy or the 50th thing that you put in your cart. Why though?

And for the past 13 years, we have been operating a food model completely different than a grocery store, BUT we have been charging our members on the same archaic price structure that grocery stores use. Examining our food model, we have identified that orders are more efficient to deliver the larger they are. The fixed costs of delivery become a smaller percentage of the total order the larger the order becomes. So why then not structure our pricing accordingly? Why not incentivize larger orders and ditch this linear pricing structure like a bad habit?

Holy Manure! Realizing this it was like taking the Blue pill (or was it the Red pill?) and stepping into the Matrix to see how things really work…or really could work. So I want to introduce you to a new membership level that we are introducing this week.

But please let me preface this by saying that this new membership level is an Option for you to choose. If you are happy where you are at, you do not have to do anything. Everything will stay the same, so what follows is optional membership level that you can choose to take advantage of.

We are calling the membership level “Friends of the Farm” and it will look like this.

If you have a $75 order, we will give you a 10% Discount. If you have a $100 order, we’ll take off 20% your bill. And if you have a $125 order, you, we’ll knock 25% off your total tab. These are huge savings to our members, but they accurately reflect the savings that we see by delivering larger orders to your house. So I want to pass those savings back to you. Let you enjoy bulk buying discounts.

Furthermore, this discount will come off your entire bill. You do not need to buy a certain product or know a secret handshake to get these discounts. They will be taken off your bill as a gross percentage ($100 order becomes $80 at checkout) no matter what you choose to put into your shopping cart. What you buy is totally up to you.

Additionally, this membership level will have FREE Delivery on any of our routes both current and future. Standard routes, express routes, any route. There will never be a delivery fee associated with this membership. So for many of our members, you can order and have Same-Day delivery 6 days a week. You choose the day or days that work best for you.

The cost of the membership level? $96 annually. Only $8 a month.

And I want to be very clear about another thing; our current prices will NOT change. We are not going to pull the ole “increase prices and then run a sale” marketing trick. Our current prices are working for us. We turn the lights on, gas up the fleet, and pay all of our employees a living wage with benefits on our current prices. So they will NOT change. Everything that we have been doing, we will continue to do. Again this membership is an Option.

I will not sugarcoat it or play smoke n mirror games; I want our farm to be a bigger part of your kitchen. The more we become an integral part of your total kitchen experience, the more loyalty and support we get from our community.

Every single one of our partner farms and producers wants to grow their business. Every single one of them wants to feed you more if they can. And the best way for us to help support them and our farm, is by increasing the volume of food that we bring to our members. And this membership is going to be a powerful move in the right direction.

Again, let me reiterate that this new membership level is completely optional for all members. Our services, our products, and our prices will all stay the exact same as they currently are and have been. The new membership level is targeted at those folks who want to buy larger quantities of healthy fresh foods, but where price has been a deterrent.

I want to offer a sustainable local food model that can bring as many people to our table as possible. And bringing down that financial burden of healthy foods will go a long way to feed more people in our communities. So with that, I ask for your help in sharing this new direction with family and friends who you think would love our food and the convenience of the home delivery service.

If you have or are involved with a business that you think would benefit from healthier food options, please email so we can set something up (monte@skarsgardfarms.com). From personal experience, I know that eating healthy is easier when you’re a part of a team. We have seen some really incredible success stories when offices/businesses tackle living better as a team. It is less daunting and groups come up with some awesome ideas on how to eat well. I would love to be a part of helping your office enjoy the good food journey. Plus you’ll have happier people taking less sick days.

Lastly this fine fall week, our web site. I know that our web site functionality is not perfect. It can be clunky or difficult to navigate. We have been working hard with our web designers to launch a better platform for all of us to use. And after many months and moons, we are getting close to making the change. We hope to roll this baby out within a month from now. It is way more “intuitive” than our current site and I can promise that you will love it.

I could not be happier with where we find ourselves right now. It has been a very challenging year both in the fields and with fine-tuning our services. But the greener pastures that we have been working diligently towards are almost here. After the dust settles, I know that we will have a better service and happier members. Please do not hesitate to email me/contact me with any comments, concerns, hopes, or dreams that you may have.

Farmer Monte