Tasty New Faces

I have to be honest that I am not one who likes to use Customer Surveys when it comes to launching a new product. You probably know that about me. I love surveys after the fact to see how we are doing. I mean everyone needs a report card right? But proactive surveys don’t tell you much. Instead, I like to launch something, throw the spaghetti against the wall, learn from what the demand tells us. Then either ditch it if it’s not working or tweak it to make it a winner at our table.

Let’s take our many iterations of the Meal Kits for example. I think I have lost track of how many different ways that we have tried to make Meal Kits work for our customers. Maybe a dozen different tweaks to the idea. Fortunately, I think that we have finally found our sweet spot. As my sage father, Skip, says, “Even a blind squirrel finds a nut every once in a while.” Sales of our meal kits have been solid and logistically they are not a complete pain in the rump roast for us to do well. So now comes the fun part, expanding the scope of the Meal Kits.

Let me lay out how we hope to diversify and expand the Meal Kit line-up to serve you and your family better. First off, you will notice 6 categories of meal ideas that we will highlight weekly. We found that Pastas, Tacos, Salads, Pizzas, Protein Bowls, and Seasonal Recipes have all been popular. So what you will see on the web site now is each of those effectively being their own category. Those categories will remain fairly consistent for the short term and we will change the recipes within those categories weekly.

For example, we will celebrate the category Taco Tuesday every week, but the tacos we offer will change from week to week. Chicken fajita tacos one week, calabacitas tacos the next, and good ole ground beef. You get the idea, same category but different flavors each week to enjoy.

All of these recipes will be quick to prepare, healthy to eat, and insane value for your wallet/purse or Fanny Pack. Working directly with the grower, dairy, rancher etc., we are in a unique position to bring you the highest quality foods for the lowest price. Great deal for you and our producers alike.

Second piece of wonderful news that I want to share with you is that we have launched our farm-fresh Juice Bar. Again, with our access to the best fruits and veggies in the state, it is a no-brainer for us to expand the ways that we bring you Organic fruits and veggies. I am happy to eat oranges, but I also am in love with fresh squeezed orange juice. Every time I sip fresh squeezed juice, I immediately feel like I am having brunch on Mexican beach with my hairy toes dug into the warm sand. And I want to feel like that more often. So we bought a juicer!

This week we will launch this new (ad)venture with 3 juices and then begin to flesh out the offering in the upcoming weeks. This week look for Apple Cider, Orange Juice, and a custom blend with Celery-Apple-Cucumber-Carrot and Lemon. Yes these are all Organic and No will never have any fillers in them.

Why will these be so special? Well besides using the freshest fruits and veggies, we will not make the juice until someone orders them. Our goal is not to make juice and then let it sit on the shelf hoping someone will buy them. That’s a good way for you to drink old juice and for us to have to throw out product.

We want to do the Juice Bar differently. I don’t want to guess how many juices we will sell. It is a heck of a lot easier to just make the juice when you order it rather than play a guessing game. So you order them, we juice them, and you get super fresh juices delivered to you door. Simple. And we have found that the simple systems are usually our best systems.

Quick recap, look for the 6 new rotating weekly meal kit offerings in both the Harvest Boxes as well as the Meal Kit tab on the web site. All of those meals are less than $4 per serving. You could not beat that if you were subsisting on Nacho Bell Grandes.

And check out the Organic freshly squeezed juice bar that we have launched for you to help ensure that you will not get scurvy this fall and winter.

Have a tasty week amigos, Farmer Monte