WMGC is a farmer-owned producer cooperative based in Missoula, MT. Since the Cooperative’s inception in 2003, they have been dedicated to improving the area’s local food system through wholesale, delivery services, and a CSA program. WMGC is a key player in the Northwest Food Hub Network — a group of food hubs partnered together to expand opportunities for local food. Read more about the Network and WMGC’s role in our Northwest Food Hub Network Year One Case Study!

WMGC’s wholesale department, led by Emily Mayberry, represents the majority of WMGC’s sales. They serve grocery stores, resorts, restaurants, and schools. Having a separate wholesale department allows them to cater to the different needs of each type of buyer.

WMGC runs both their Wholesale and CSA sales through LFM. Join us at our upcoming webinar on March 26th: Bringing your Wholesale Business Online to learn how LFM helps them manage their business.

Register here

Selling wholesale: Key considerations from WMGC   

Selling to wholesale buyers differs significantly from direct-to-consumer, requiring a distinct sales strategy. Here are several key considerations to take into account when selling wholesale, alongside the specific LFM features WMGC utilizes to effectively manage and enhance their business: 

  Varied Pricing Structures

WMGC’s wholesale pricing is structured around category margin pricing, where margins are determined by product categories such as fruits, vegetables, frozen goods, and dry items. In addition, the Cooperative takes things like distance, sales channel, and order minimums into account when determining pricing. With this variability, it’s important for WMGC to be able to efficiently and accurately reflect these pricing structures on their storefront.  

LFM‘s software allows WMGC to fully customize each buyer’s pricing and product availability 

With LFM, WMGC can set different margins within each of their product categories to finely tune each sales channel and accurately price items in accordance with each buyer’s needs. In addition to customizing the pricing, WMGC uses LFM’s Custom Product List feature to customize which products are visible to each customer.

Interested in learning how LFM can help you grow and manage your wholesale business? Join us at our upcoming webinar on March 26th: Bringing your Wholesale Business Online

Register here

Streamlined sales process 

WMGC’s weekly workflow includes bi-weekly sales calls held on Mondays and Thursdays to ensure orders are being placed in a timely and efficient way. LFM streamlines WMGC’s weekly workflow by consolidating orders placed on the storefront with orders placed by the WMGC sales team.

LFM’s software streamlines WMGC’s weekly sales process

LFM aligns seamlessly with WMGC’s weekly sales workflow. WMGC uses LFM to: 

• Enable customers to place orders on the storefront, reducing the amount of time spent on admin work. This increases efficiency and the number of customers each salesperson can assist. 
• Consolidate storefront and admin orders in one centralized location, saving time and maintaining organizational efficiency. 
• Allow admins to create future orders and view product availability by producer, enhancing sales forecasting and planning. 
• Set up recurring orders for consistent orders, increasing average order value and offering a valuable time-saving feature for WMGC staff. 

“LFM’s recurring orders feature is a huge time-saving tool for our staff.” – Emily Mayberry, Sales Manager at WMGC

Efficient inventory management 

Ensuring that there is an efficient inventory management process between producers and the cooperative is vital for WMGC. WMGC Category Managers work closely with producers to facilitate efficient ordering through twice-weekly pick tickets and purchase orders.

LFM enhances WMGC’s inventory management and ordering efficiency  

Here are a few of the LFM features WMGC uses to save time during their weekly workflow: 

• Automated purchase orders & pick tickets: By automating these processes, WMGC saves time on admin tasks. 
• Par Level: Par Levels ensure efficient inventory management by automatically alerting WMGC if a product falls below the designated par level.
• “Just in Time” and Warehouse Inventory: To ensure maximum freshness, WMGC keeps some products in their warehouse to fulfill orders and others are fulfilled Just In Time (Harvest to Order).  LFM’s flexible inventory system ensures accurate inventory and streamlined producer communication.
• Dynamic Order Fulfillment: LFM’s dynamic order packing data enables warehouse staff to find and modify customer orders with a single click.
• Bulk Credits and Swaps: If  a producer isn’t able to deliver products that were ordered, WMGC can easily credit all affected customers with just a few clicks, or swap the items out for a different producer’s product.

“LFM’s Par Level feature is invaluable for us. To be able to log into LFM, run an inventory report, and see where our current inventory lies, is very important to our weekly workflow and has saved us a ton of time.” –Emily Mayberry, Sales Manager at WMGC

Interested in learning how LFM can help you grow and manage your wholesale business? Join us at our upcoming webinar on March 26th: Bringing your Wholesale Business Online

Register here

Year-end planning 

Year-end planning is an integral part of the success of WMGC’s wholesale operations. This process is a collaborative effort between producers and the Cooperative, and it involves analyzing sales data from the previous year to project and plan for the upcoming growing season. 

LFM’s reporting tools help WMGC plan ahead 

LFM’s sales reporting plays an integral part in ensuring WMGC builds reliable and accurate sales plans each year. Here are a few of the key LFM reports WMGC utilizes: 

• Sales by Product: WMGC uses this report for streamlined access to every products sold throughout the year — this LFM feature allows the Cooperative to build accurate sales plans for the coming year.
• Comparison Reports: WMGC utilizes LFM to analyze monthly sales data and strategize crop sales for the upcoming year.

“I use LFM’s sales reports to make sales projections for the following year so we can more efficiently build an accurate budget.” -Emily Mayberry, Sales Manager at WMGC

LFM’s collaborative approach plays a role in WMGC’s scalability and future growth 

In addition to the tools mentioned above, WMGC highly values LFM’s focus on implementing feedback and fostering a collaborative approach to solve problems and ensure success. With regular product development releases and communication from LFM, the functionality of the system is constantly enhancing to help WMGC scale their business.  

“LFM is so open to feedback. There’s always an open door for collaboration, and I can’t tell you how much we feel supported from LFM.” –Emily Mayberry, Sales Manager at WMGC

Want to learn more about how LFM can help you grow your wholesale business? 

 Join LFM and Emily Mayberry from WMGC to learn how LFM’s software can help you modernize your wholesale processes to grow your business.

Innovative Sales: Bringing your Wholesale Business Online

When: March 26th, 11am PT. 

Where: Online — Register here!  

You’ll learn more about WMGC’s wholesale processes and how they use LFM to set up a customized shopping experience for buyers, including:

Custom price lists

Support for master and sub-accounts

Customized payment terms and methods

Recurring orders

… and more!

Can’t make it live? Register anyway and we’ll send you a recording! 

The post Selling Wholesale: Advice from a MT Food Hub first appeared on Local Food Marketplace.

This project aligns with our mission. 

LFM’s mission is to relocalize our food system by enabling small farms to scale up, increase sales, and reduce risk.  Online SNAP with SNAP Match support enables farms, food hubs, and local food businesses to grow their business by making local food accessible to more customers.

We are excited to be working with other mission-aligned organizations.

To realize our goal in bringing Online SNAP to small, farm-based businesses in a scalable way, we forged key partnerships with mission-aligned organizations to collaborate and meet the market need:

• • Forage is a payment technology company aimed at simplifying access to government benefit programs like SNAP. Their commitment to providing a modern merchant experience for merchants of all sizes, is transforming the way customers access healthy and affordable food. Their customer-centric approach and expertise in navigating Online SNAP approval is vital to simplifying the process for LFM customers to accept SNAP online.
• • Activate Food Arizona is helping farm-based merchants in Arizona strategize and adjust their business models to meet the unique requirements to accept Online SNAP and SNAP Match.  Their expertise is crucial in ensuring a seamless Online SNAP Match experience for customers while cutting down admin time used to manage SNAP Match sales.
• • Rosebird Farms is the very first user of LFM’s Online SNAP solution.  We are grateful for their commitment to making local food accessible to customers in their region and for their collaborative problem solving approach.

Intuitive Payment Experience

Our integration with Forage means that your customers will experience seamless payment experiences. By providing an easy, secure, and dependable checkout experience, you can increase retention and grow your business.

Automated SNAP Match Support

We know that SNAP sales are driven by SNAP Match (like DUFB) for most farms and food hubs. That’s why we have automated the creation of SNAP Match credits to be used on eligible items for future purchases. By doing so, you can cut down on the amount of admin time spent on SNAP Match related tasks, and your customers can enjoy the same SNAP Match benefits online as they do in person.

Reporting & Metrics

Having access to metrics can help you grow and manage your online SNAP sales. LFM provides simple reports for tracking and reporting on both your Online SNAP sales and your SNAP Match sales.

Technical Assistance

Online SNAP can be daunting, but we are here to help. LFM will provide guidance to prepare your store for accepting Online SNAP. Through our partnership with Forage, we will ensure your account is ready to go and you are set up for success.

What does the Online SNAP checkout process look like?

Rosebird Farms is the first user to implement Online SNAP through LFM! See below for a few snapshots of their store’s Online SNAP/EBT checkout process.

“At LFM, we are continuously improving our technology to empower local food businesses. By implementing online SNAP/EBT solutions, we are enabling our customers to broaden their customer base and improve access to local food for all consumers.” — Amy McCann, CEO of Local Food Marketplace.  

The post INTRODUCING: Online SNAP/EBT Payment Processing Through LFM first appeared on Local Food Marketplace.

This year’s Summit underscored the importance of collaboration and innovation propelling the local food movement, attracting over 150 attendees from various food hub networks, public agencies, market partners, and local food organizations. The presence of 7 food hub network managers from across the country highlights the significant demand for scalable local ownership within our regional food systems, and we are honored to support the NWFHN as it paves the way for future initiatives in food hub development.

Prior to the Summit, Network Manager, Charlie Michel of Mission West Community Development Partners led the entire project team including the 3 food hubs, Puget Sound Food Hub, LINC Foods, and Western Montana Growers Co-op, and project partners, Mission West, LFM, and Kitchen Sync Strategies in mapping out the coming year and beyond for the NWFHN.

Interested in learning more about the Northwest Food Hub Network?

Read our Year 1 Case Study

Key Takeaways

Fostering collaboration to scale food hubs in a new way

The success of the NWFHN demonstrates that creating a strong and collaborative network presents significant growth opportunities for local food. We left the Summit with even greater motivation to develop closer relationships both within our own organizations and with others, to work together in creating a vibrant local food ecosystem.

Effective cooperation involves mutual benefit. Throughout the lifecycle of individual cooperatives there are times when they will need support and others when they will be capable of giving it. Reciprocation is the bedrock of trust and mutual trust is the foundation of cooperation.”

– Charlie Michel, NWFHN Program Manager

Embracing innovation

The Network is pioneering a new business model that inspires and lays the groundwork for future networks. Since its inception in 2021, institutional sales across three hubs grew 10X to just over $2M in 2023 — and the momentum continues to grow!

Additionally, the network has:

Completed nearly 100 hub-to-hub inventory trading transactions to extend seasonality and expand our sustainably sourced offerings.

Maintained 600+ jobs for local farms, food hubs, and food system non-profits.

Created market access for more than 300 local farmers, ranchers, and value-added food processors across Washington and Montana.

LFM is proud to support the Northwest Food Hub Network

Our technology powers the design and coordination behind the Network, enabling them to continue innovating and growing their business model.

LFM provides the Network with:

Source-transparent online storefronts

Curated product lists for institutional customers

Self-service reporting for purchasing managers

Seamless hub-to-hub invoicing

Enhanced route value visibility and monitoring

Integrated producer communication and documentation

As the Northwest Food Hub Network continues to innovate and grow, LFM stands ready to evolve alongside them, supporting their mission to create a vibrant and sustainable local food ecosystem.

Interested in learning more about how LFM supports collaborative sales?

Contact us!

The post Fostering Innovation and Collaboration at the Northwest Food Hub Network Summit first appeared on Local Food Marketplace.

Interested in learning how LFM makes offering a customizable farm share easy? Join us at our upcoming webinar on February 27th: How to Offer Customizable Shares

Register here

Why Warner Farm Decided it was Time to Switch to a Customizable Model

Warner Farm had been running a traditional CSA model for a decade before making the switch to a customizable CSA model. They had been seeing a steady decrease in customers year-to-year, and after receiving feedback, they learned that some people were just not interested in the traditional CSA model anymore.  

The feedback that we were receiving from other farmers and customers was that some people just did not have the time or money to spend on produce they had never heard of before and didn’t know how to cook.”

– Lacey Arnold, Direct Market Manager of Warner Farms

Why Warner Farm Chose LFM to Enhance their Customizable CSA Experience 

After offering customizable shares for several years, Warner Farm sought an all-in-one platform that could simultaneously streamline their customizable CSA processes and give them the tools to better serve customers placing one-time orders — all without adding extra admin tasks. Here are a couple of valuable tools that led Warner Farm to join LFM.  

Subscription Builder 

Warner Farm was thrilled when LFM introduced the Subscription Builder Feature, offering a solution to better manage their customizable farm shares. 

As soon as I received the emails announcing the Subscription Builder feature, I jumped on it immediately.”

-Lacey Arnold, Warner Farm 

Running fully customizable farm shares requires a powerful, flexible software platform. LFM’s Subscription Builder handles all admin tasks for Warner Farm – from generating real-time product availability, to pick lists, packing lists, sales reports, emails, and more. By using LFM to power their customizable farm share, the folks at Warner Farm don’t have to worry about extra admin tasks — their processes for managing this model are not much different than their previous traditional CSA model. 

By using LFM, I don’t have to use any other software or any other tools to track and run this CSA program. LFM does everything for me.”

-Lacey Arnold, Warner Farm 

The ability to manage both subscriptions and one-time orders through the same platform 

LFM’s software makes it easy for Warner Farm to manage both subscriptions and one-time orders all through the same system. This feature attracts more customers by allowing people to order without the commitment of a weekly subscription. In 2023 they saw 53 customers place Ala carte orders, which they wouldn’t have otherwise had — and they expect these numbers to grow as they expand their marketing. 

Many customers sign up thinking biweekly will be enough, but a few weeks in realize they may want to place orders more often. When I teach them that “ala carte” ordering is possible, it really makes their day. Then they can just order a few things on their “off weeks” without having to sign up for an entirely new subscription.”

-Lacey Arnold, Warner Farm 

This feature boosts weekly orders by enabling customers to “fill in the gaps” of their bi-weekly CSAs and can also function as a “trial” for customers who may be unsure about committing to a subscription. 

Last season, I heard from a few customers who placed “ala carte” orders that they were excited to sign up for a full-time membership this year.”

-Lacey Arnold, Warner Farm 

This ordering option is a great way to increase sales with no added admin time for Warner Farm. LFM’s storefront allows Warner Farm to seamlessly integrate its product availability across its CSA shares and provide any additional product on the storefront for one-time ordering. The one-time orders follow the same order window as the CSA and Warner Farm can generate packing labels for both at once. It’s a truly integrated system that folds right into their customizable share program.   

How Warner Farm’s Fully Customizable Model Works

The beauty of a customizable share model is that you can build the model to fit your farm’s processes. For Warner Farm, this meant a fully customizable model— meaning, the farm creates a suggested farm share, but the customers have the chance to make any changes they like in a given time period before orders are fulfilled.  

Members can choose their share size (S, M, L) and opt to prepay for the season or, using LFM’s payment plan option, pay weekly. They also have the option to add items like flowers, pork, or bread to their share.  

They have a base value that they’re allowed to spend however they want every single week. Maybe half our CSA customers typically just accept the default share we’ve created for that $20, but then the other half will customize it to their heart’s content.” 

– Lacey Arnold, Direct Market Manager of Warner Farm

Customers can remove items from their share, so that they will have extra to spend in future weeks. Likewise, if customers add additional produce, they simply pay for the additional items. This allows them to curate their CSA exactly to their preferences. Additionally, Warner Farm provides customizable scheduling, allowing members to place their share on hold without limitations. 

Interested in learning how LFM makes offering a customizable farm share easy? Join us at our upcoming webinar on February 27th: How to Offer Customizable Shares

Register here

Warner Farm Saw Increased Signups After Implementing this Model 

Warner Farm has seen an increase in membership since implementing the customizable model in the winter of 2019. After experiencing a pandemic surge, their membership has landed at about 450 members — an increase of 50% since transitioning to customizable shares. The farm believes their customizable share model was the tipping point for many during the pandemic who were considering CSAs pre-pandemic.  

During the pandemic, I think that a lot of people who never would have chosen a CSA looked into CSAs. I think that a lot of those people chose our CSA specifically because of the promise of being able to choose your own vegetables every week, and not being forced to take stuff that they weren’t sure how they were going to use.”

–Lacey Arnold, Direct Market Manager of Warner Farms

What Customers Love About Warner Farm’s new CSA model 

Warner Farm has gotten excellent feedback from their customers since implementing the customizable CSA model. Here are some key reasons why customers love it: 

• • Practical Meal Planning: The customizable model is particularly beneficial for families, offering practicality to meal planning. When preparing a dinner for four, having a large quantity of one type of produce is more convenient than a smaller quantity of different types. 
  • Flexible Scheduling: Customers appreciate the flexibility to put their share on hold, making it convenient to navigate around vacation plans or other commitments without feeling pressured to receive unwanted produce during their absence.  
  • Low Commitment: Through the one-time ordering option on LFM, customers don’t have to commit to a weekly subscription if they are unsure. They have the flexibility to subscribe to a “biweekly” CSA schedule and fill in the gaps with one-time orders, they have the option to do a “trial” CSA if they’re unsure about a full-time subscription, or they can continue ordering without a subscription — all without any extra hassle on Warner Farm’s end.  
  • Minimized Food Waste: A common concern for customers when signing up for a traditional CSA was the fear of letting produce go to waste. The Customizable CSA model addresses this issue by ensuring that customers receive only what they want to eat or cook, therefore minimizing waste. 

Offering a customizable CSA is only a win in my book. The customer response is just huge.”

–Lacey Arnold, Direct Market Manager of Warner Farms

Want to learn more about how you can offer a customizable farm share? 

 Join LFM and Lacey Arnold from Warner Farm to learn how LFM’s software can help seamlessly integrate customizable shares into your current model. 

Innovative Sales: How to Offer Customizable Shares 

When: February 27th, 11am PT. 

Where: Online — Register here!  

You’ll learn about:

Warner Farm’s journey to offering a customizable CSA

How Warner Farm uses LFM’s Subscription Builder feature to run their customizable CSA

How this feature helps increase customer acquisition and retention

How implementing these changes can positively impact your business

… and more!

Can’t make it live? Register anyway and we’ll send you a recording! 

The post How a MA Farm Pivoted their CSA Model to Retain their Members first appeared on Local Food Marketplace.

We’ve continually evolved our technology and the services we provide to ensure our customers maximize the benefits of using the LFM platform. As we add new features, LFM has grown to become a comprehensive enterprise platform enabling farms, food hubs and producers to run, scale, and grow their business.  After designing, testing, and refining them over the last year, we are excited to announce our Customer Success Packages. We’ve learned what local food businesses need most to grow is more than just software — they need comprehensive support. 

About Customer Success Packages

These tailored packages offer the one-on-one guidance, personalized tools, and continuous improvement strategies needed to improve processes and meet goals. As the platform is adopted, the Customer Success Packages adapt to shifting business needs. The plans are tailored to include a thorough onboarding process in the first year, followed by a transition to ongoing success and business growth in following years.  

Want to learn more about how these Packages can ensure your continuous growth and success with LFM?

Schedule a call

The Details

1. Onboarding (customers in their first year)

We understand what it takes to switch platforms or start using new software, and we know the process requires a high level of support. That’s why our Customer Success Packages include a thorough onboarding process with extensive personalized support. 

This has been BY FAR the smoothest start to our CSA season that I have experienced in the 5 years I have been running this program for our farm.” -LFM Customer

Dedicated Onboarding Manager to ensure success in the first year

Custom onboarding plan  

Data migration and imports 

Web template customization (Standard & Premium Packages) 

Post “Go Live” support  

We’d love to chat more about how Customer Success Packages make onboarding easy.

Schedule a demo!

2. One-on-One Technical Assistance

We are not some faceless tech company — in our one-on-one technical assistance sessions, real people work with customers to understand their issues and proactively find individualized resolutions. Whether this means training or a quick fix, we’re happy to help. 

 I have received above and beyond help from everyone to sort out problems and find unique ways to make things work better for us.” –LFM Customer

One-on-one training with our Support Team to identify any problem areas 

Quickly address and solve technical issues 

We have Customer Success Packages to fit all of our Pricing Plans

Learn more

3. Tailored Training

Hiring new staff? Want to stay up to date on all of LFM’s features? There are a variety of reasons why training is an important piece of overall success. Including personalized training in our packages allows us to work with customers to identify knowledge gaps and arrange proper training for their team, ensuring they are well-equipped to reach their goals. 

I’ve been very impressed with everyone’s support and quick responses! I will be proud to recommend you all to other farmers!” -LFM Customer

New hire orientation (1 per new staff member)  

Resources and tools to close knowledge gaps  

Education surrounding product releases and features 

We continue to discover new features we didn’t even know about before signing on.” –LFM Customer

4. In-Depth Guidance: Business Reviews

LFM is more than just software — we’re here to help grow local food businesses. By including business reviews in our Customer Success Packages, we can align our efforts and resources to support businesses in achieving their goals. Think of these as a chance to reflect on how LFM is serving your business goals. During these sessions, we will:  

Discuss your successes and challenges 

Outline your goals for the next 6-12 months

Review the latest LFM features to enhance your operations 

Address any outstanding issues that need to be resolved 

Identify any technical assistance needed and recommend best practice 

5. Workflow Optimization

As business evolves, so should the processes. The team at LFM will provide the tools and guidance needed to optimize workflow through the platform. Whether that’s implementing new modules or iterating on current processes, we are here to meet the growing needs of a local food business.  

Identify and implement new modules to meet the growing needs of your business

Assist with customizing LFM’s SOP to match your processes (if needed)  

Identify areas of improvement within your current processes and assist in customizing a workflow plan

Our Customer Success Packages are a response to the challenges faced by local food businesses.

 These packages are designed to provide one-on-one guidance, personalized tools, and continuous improvement strategies to ensure that both new and existing customers can feel supported and have the tools they need to navigate the complexities of their growing local food businesses. 

The post Introducing: Customer Success Packages first appeared on Local Food Marketplace.

Delivered Fresh is an online food hub that aggregates and delivers products from over 60 local farmers to retail consumers and restaurants around NE Pennsylvania. As with most businesses selling local food, their business has changed from pre-pandemic to now, and Delivered Fresh refreshed their website and online storefront to reflect these changes. 

Challenges Delivered Fresh was Encountering with their Website

Pre-pandemic, the food hub was generating sales from restaurants and retail consumers from delivery and on-farm pickup. Most restaurants stopped ordering and Delivered Fresh transitioned to 100% delivery during the pandemic. Now, the restaurant business has come back, but they decided to stick with 100% delivery.  With multiple types of buyers (Restaurants and Retail Consumers) coming to the website, some website visitors were unclear on how (and when) to order and if they could get delivery — resulting in lost sales. Delivered Fresh wanted to make their order and delivery schedule clear for all buyers – with the goal of increasing the number of new customers and bringing back those that haven’t ordered in a while. 

There was outdated information on the website about ordering and delivery that needed to be updated, and the website design needed a refresh.”

– David Nowacoski, Co-founder of Delivered Fresh

LFM and Grapevine Local Food Marketing Helped Delivered Fresh Solve These Challenges

LFM introduced David Nowacoski, Co-founder of Delivered Fresh, to Grapevine Local Food Marketing to collaborate on creating a streamlined customer experience from their home page through their shopping pages.  

By making these 5 key adjustments to the food hub’s website and implementing a few new ad campaigns, Delivered Fresh has already seen account sign ups grow by 4x and sales are up 18% compared to the same period last year.

Since making these updates, we’ve been getting as many account sign ups in a week as we normally do in a month.” 

– David Nowacoski, Co-founder of Delivered Fresh

Update 1: Proper Communication with Customers Every Step of the Way 

To clear up confusion surrounding sign up and delivery, Grapevine designed a simple page with a clear 3-step process. By providing clear messaging, buyers are more likely to sign up and place orders. 

Update 2: Adjust LFM Settings to Better Serve All Customer Types  

Delivered Fresh’s delivery options had changed since the pandemic and the website needed to be updated to reflect these changes. The LFM team helped David adjust the customer settings for both retail consumers and restaurants to reflect the delivery changes and be sure all customers were seeing only the information that was pertinent to them. 

One great aspect of working with LFM is our seamless collaboration. We effectively work with the team at LFM to ensure the website is dialed in on all sides. This partnership creates a cohesive and streamlined customer experience.”

– Anna, Grapevine Local Food Marketing

Update 3: Create a Seamless Customer Experience Between Delivered Fresh’s Website and Online Store 

It’s important for details like navigation and brand image to match across your website and online store.  When a customer is redirected to an app or different website to shop, it can cause confusion. LFM sites are specifically designed to offer a seamless buying experience. 

The LFM and Grapevine teams helped Delivered Fresh create a seamless customer experience with a few simple changes.  

1. Consistent Navigation. By having a matching navigation bar throughout the entire online experience, Delivered Fresh customers can easily jump from shopping to an “About Page” and back to shopping.    
2. Cohesive Design. By using the same logo, fonts, and colors, customers will always know they are on a Delivered Fresh site.  
3. Custom URL. The food hub uses a custom sub-domain, deliveredfresh.store.com, for their LFM-hosted shopping experience. Using a sub-domain of your URL further reinforces brand consistency. 

Update 4: Simplifying Content

Well thought out design contributes to how customers view a business and how they will interact with a store. A few changes have had a significant impact on how Delivered Fresh’s store is perceived. 

1. Clear Home Page. They revamped their Home Page to only include key information on how to shop, a short overview of who they are, and how to learn more. By doing so, customers can quickly locate what applies to them without being overwhelmed. Customers who want to learn more can click through for more information — leading to higher engagement!  
2. Consistent Content. While Delivered Fresh’s Home Page remains consistent so customers can easily navigate to place orders, they created a Blog to post all current events and updates for customers to click through. 
3. Newsletter Popup. This is a simple and effective way for Delivered Fresh to increase their audience.  

Update 5: SEO Tune Up

For Delivered Fresh, a few content updates have already made a big difference. For example, by adding “From Pennsylvania Farms” to their “Shop” button, Delivered Fresh will rank higher on Google Search results when people search for local food in Pennsylvania.

We’ve been seeing a lot more activity on our page since Grapevine Local Food Marketing updated our SEO.”

– David Nowacoski, Co-founder of Delivered Fresh

We’ll be covering these updates & more at our upcoming webinar on January 30th: “Creating a Seamless Customer Experience”.

Register here!

Measuring Success

Delivered Fresh’s goal for making these website updates was to increase orders and account sign-ups. With 4x the number of usual account sign ups, these 5 website updates have been successful in helping drive growth and sales for Delivered Fresh. The food hub continues to measure their results and adjust based on the feedback so they can continuously improve their strategy!

The goal of any website update is to increase conversion rate, and that means different things for different people. For David at Delivered Fresh, that means more orders or account sign ups.”

-Anna, Grapevine Local Food Marketing 

Delivered Fresh Continues to Explore New Ways to Innovate their Sales 

Delivered Fresh is looking forward to implementing additional changes and tools to increase sales. With guidance and support from Grapevine and LFM, Delivered Fresh is working on updating their Facebook meta pixel information to help them find broader audiences. They are also beginning to explore Mailchimp automations to increase their marketing efforts. By approaching sales from different angles, Delivered Fresh will be able to find what works best for them.

Want to learn about how you can implement these updates and more?

Join us and Grapevine Local Food Marketing for our webinar, Creating a Seamless Customer Experience”.

There’s some really great key takeaways that I think a lot of people don’t know they are missing, so it’s going to be a very insightful session.”

– Anna, Grapevine Local Food Marketing.

Creating a Seamless Customer Experience | January 30th, 11am PT

In this session, we will go over:

Consistency across the entire website experience — including branding, fonts & menus, URLs, and more. 

How to clearly outline the different ways customers can shop.  

Examples of strong SEO strategy.  

Best practices you can implement now on your homepage. 

The post Delivered Fresh Saw Account Sign Ups Grow by 4x After These 5 Website Updates first appeared on Local Food Marketplace.

Spork Food Hub was founded in the Summer of 2021 by two farmers — Hope Sippola and Shayne Zurilgen of Fiery Ginger Farm. In under three years, Spork Food Hub has successfully partnered with over 50 local, sustainable, family-owned farms and works with over 25 school districts, universities, and prisons. Spork’s mission is simple: To improve school food. But the path there isn’t necessarily that simple — that’s why Spork Food Hub started using Local Food Marketplace to make things as easy as possible. In this blog post, we’ll explore how Spork Food Hub leverages technology to successfully scale within the farm-to-school market.  

Challenges Spork Food Hub Encountered with Scaling

A common challenge encountered in farm-to-school programs is keeping track of it all: Product availability from numerous farms, sales for dozens of schools, government reimbursements, payment processing, and more. Doing all of these processes by hand takes a lot of time and is not scalable. The hub needed help managing it all, and that’s where Local Food Marketplace came in. Spork Food Hub was founded in the summer of 2021, and by the fall, Spork started using LFM.  

How LFM Helps Spork Solve These Challenges

Before LFM, Spork was calling schools to sell produce, calling farms to check availability, and then tracking it all in spreadsheets. After bringing the hub online through LFM, Spork saved numerous hours every week by cutting these processes out. 

Using technology benefits everyone:

• Farms can log their availability and set it to be the same every week — in turn, they can sell more product by keeping their inventory up to date. 
• Spork does not have to call each farm and edit the availability themselves every week. 
• Schools can order exactly what they want through filtering by the type of food, producer, product attributes (like Certified Organic), and more.  
• Spork does not have to call each individual school to sell product. 
• There is even a dashboard built into the software to download the files needed to simplify farm-to-school reimbursements.  

By utilizing technology like LFM, Spork saves countless hours which gave them the time, energy, and organizational processes to add additional schools and farms to their network.  

“Before LFM, Spork was doing everything by hand: Calling farms to get availability then calling schools to sell stuff. That doesn’t scale very well. Using LFM to put all these pieces together saves a lot of time.” – Jacob Weiss | General Manager at Spork Food Hub 

Where Spork Food Hub is Today

Since using LFM to manage multi-producer sales and ultimately save hours of time every week, Spork is able to devote more time to focus on scaling up — giving them a wider reach to fulfill their mission. Since 2021, Spork Food Hub has: 

• Procured over $2 million of produce from local, sustainable, and family-owned farms. 
• Partnered with over 50 local, sustainable, and family-owned farms.  
• Added over 25 school districts, universities, and prisons to their network. 

“These dollars directly support farmer livelihoods and enhance their communities. Many of these purchases are from small, historically undeserved farms which we have strived to include as we’ve added new institutional customers”, Jacob Weiss told us in an interview.

A Word of Advice from Spork Food Hub

Want more advice from Spork on farm-to-school success?

The post Scaling Farm-to-School Programs: How Spork Food Hub Leverages Technology first appeared on Local Food Marketplace.

Growing Your Email List: For Farmers & Food Hubs

The following tips are excerpted from our free “Email Marketing Toolkit for Farmers & Food Hubs”.

A good place to start collecting email addresses is in-person. Start your list the old-fashioned way with a pen & clipboard at farmers markets, events, your farm store, or any place where you are in contact with potential customers. Conferences and other events that connect buyers and producers are a key place to meet potential wholesale customers. Be sure to bring a sign-up sheet to these events!

Another way to get your real-life shoppers to your website is to create QR Codes linking to your online store or newsletter sign up page. Print those QR codes onto a sign for your stand at the farmers’ market, or your table at a conference—that way any passer-by can just scan the code with their phone to go straight to your website.

Your website is another key source of emails. Create a form on your website to encourage prospects to leave their name and email address if they’d like to keep up with your business. You can list the newsletter form on your homepage, within your blog posts, and on a popup that appears on your website.

Use your social media to place a call out. Direct your followers to your newsletter form via link, or even just ask them to send their email to you via direct message on Instagram or Facebook.

Don’t forget about your current customers! Prompt customers to share their email address when placing an online order. With Local Food Marketplace’s online ordering platform, all shoppers use their email to create an account, and this information is shared to MailChimp via a simple integration.

Make sure to give customers an incentive. If they’re sharing their email address, what are they getting in return? Whether it’s recipes, promo and discount codes, information about upcoming events, or more stories about your farm(s), make sure to let folks know what sort of emails they can expect in exchange for signing on to your list.

One specific type of incentive is a lead magnet. This is a free resource given to potential customers in exchange for their email address. Content such as vegetable storage guides, recipe books, gardening tips, and more can be packaged into a pdf document that folks can download from your website after submitting their email address. You can also use discounts and promo codes as lead magnets. Create a popup that advertises for a percentage off their first order. Shoppers will submit their information to receive the code in a follow up email.

Want to learn more? Download Your Free Email Marketing Toolkit.

Additional Marketing Resources

Consistent, quality marketing is essential for successful businesses, especially online markets. Local Food Marketplace integrates with Mailchimp to provide a streamlined, in-depth customer database for you to promote your marketplace. If you’re looking for more information on how to increase sales and marketing for farms, food hubs, farmers markets, and CSAs, check out our recent blog posts:

• • How Quality Photos Drive Sales
  • Social Media Strategies to Maximize your Online Store
  • How to use Press Releases to Promote your Online Store

The post Six Ways to Grow Your Email List first appeared on Local Food Marketplace.

In 2015, Small Farm Central coined “CSA Day” to recognize that February is the most popular time of the year to join a CSA (aka Community Supported Agriculture). Since then, the CSA Innovation Network has expanded this day into a full week in February dedicated to supporting and promoting Community Supported Agriculture. Please check our the CSA Innovation Network’s CSA Week page to learn more! There, you can sing up for the The CSA Innovation Network’s free toolkit, and add your farm/organization to the CSA Week Participants Map.

CSA Innovation Network CSA Week Page: https://www.csainnovationnetwork.org/csa-week 

When is CSA Week this year?

The CSA Innovation Network will be celebrating CSA Week from February 19 to February 25, 2024. If you’re running a CSA, this will be the week to focus on engaging with your customers. If you’re a local food advocate, this is the time to support local food producers by signing up for farm shares, and spreading the word both in person and online! Here at Local Food Marketplace, we’re proud to support local food producers.

We’ve put together some stories and resources to help you prepare for CSA week–see below! In the meantime, is your business ready for growing season? Local Food Marketplace provides software to manage both traditional and customizable CSAs. Learn more by scheduling a free demo today!

Start Here: Free Guides to Help You Retain Customers and Sell More

One of the benefits of local food for the consumer is forming a relationship with their food producers. By focusing on these customer relationships, you can create lifelong farm share subscribers. Check out the guides below for expert advice and proven strategies to retain your CSA customers, and to increase the value of these relationships.

1. Cultivate Customers & Grow Value: A Guide to CSA Retention

2. Increasing Average Order Size: A Farmer & Food Hub’s Guide

Resources from CSA Innovation Network

“CSA Day” was first started by Small Farm Central. The CSA Innovation Network has gone one step further to promote a full CSA Week from Feb 20-26. Check out their site for a free digital toolkit to help you promote your CSA: https://www.csainnovationnetwork.org/csa-week

Farm Share Success Stories

Learn how Farmers & Food Hubs are Running their CSAs.

Creating Customizable CSAs with Fiddlehead Farm

Check out Heather Coffey’s step-by-step guide to using technology to sell fully customizable CSAs.

“Customizable subscriptions are a no-brainer for me,” says Heather. “[Fiddlehead Farm’s CSA members] are making the commitment to local and the commitment to eating what’s in season, so I can at least give them the choice of everything that’s in the garden.”

 

Flexible CSA Payment Options with Upswing Farm

“We use our LFM-powered site to offer our CSA on a sliding scale at three price points. I think this brings awareness to the fact that everyone deserves access to fresh food. And if the total isn’t in balance at the end of the year, we use funds from the community support tier to donate extra CSAs to food pantries. This way we are deliberately donating high-quality, varied produce that we could have sold for a profit—not just the stuff we grew too much of.”

Expanding Sales Channels with Blue Sky Organic Farms

Today, Blue Sky Organic Farms operates a large CSA farm share program, participates in four weekly farmers markets, sells to a large wholesale client base, and runs an on-site farm store full of local food and products from other Arizona-based producers.

“Before we implemented LFM, only CSA customers could buy online. Now, anyone can pick up an order. And since LFM accommodates our whole inventory, we could expand our other product offerings to CSA customers.”

How Do I Market My Farm Share?

If you’re getting ready to sign up CSA customers this February, you’ll want to harness your website & social media to tell your store. Check out these blog posts for some marketing tips to help you promote your CSA effectively.

1. Social Media Strategies to Maximize your Online Store

2. How to Use Press Releases to Promote Your Online Store

3. Farms & Facebook Pixels

4. MailChimp Integration for Powerful Marketing

5. How Quality Photos Drive Sales

How do I Chose a Software to Manage My CSA?

Running a CSA requires incredible attention to detail and organization. If you’re like many farmers, you’ve managed to do everything with Excel, QuickBooks, and email so far — but sometimes managing everything this way can feel like more trouble than it’s worth. Technology can help lighten that load.

Winter is the perfect time to onboard a new system that can help you stay organized, increase sales, manage data, and grow your business. Please don’t hesitate to reach out to LFM to schedule a demo to see our software in action and learn how we can help your business. In the meantime, read on to learn about how software can help you manage your CSA.

1. New Feature – “Subscription Builder” for Farm Shares

2. Evaluating Online Sales Platforms

What tools do I need to run a successful farm share?

A user-friendly website

 A way to manage deliveries or pickups

 Flexibility and customization options for customers

Easy inventory management

 Email communication with customers

Local Food Marketplace offers all of these tools in one single platform. And we’ve even added new features especially for those farms and food hubs that offer CSA shares & subscriptions.

If you have any questions about how LFM can help you to set up your farm shares for success, just click here to set up a free demo call.

More Resources to Help Upgrade Your Farm Share Subscriptions:

• • • • Here’s How Local Food Can Join the Subscription Economy
      • Cultivate Customers & Grow Value: A Guide to CSA Retention
      • How Farmers are using Data to Increase Profit
      • Growing Sales and Sliding Scales: An Interview with Upswing Farm
      • A Farmer’s Guide to Online Orders

Still searching for a CSA software solution? Meet with us for a free demo!

The post CSA Week Resources first appeared on Local Food Marketplace.

For CSA farmers, finding technology to support their unique needs can be a challenge. We recently sat down with Heather Coffey of Fiddlehead Farm to talk about how LFM helps her offer CSA (community supported agriculture) shares all year long to families in Ontario.

Heather Coffey of Fiddlehead Farm

LFM Customer Profile: Fiddlehead Farm

• • • An organic vegetable farm in Prince Edward County, Ontario
    • Founded by Stephanie Laing & Heather Coffey in 2012
    • Grows over 50 varieties of vegetables on 11 acres, with a small team of staff
    • Provides farm shares to 300 CSA members

Fiddlehead Farm is committed to promoting a sustainable food system by following organic practices, as well as committing to offering seasonal vegetables to its CSA members all year long. As Heather puts it “We feed people year-round because people eat year-round.”

Read on how Local Food Marketplace (LFM) makes it easy for Fiddlehead Farm to sell customized farm shares online.

Creating Customizable Farm Shares with LFM’s Subscription Builder

Why Customize?

One of Heather’s priorities for selling local food online is a platform that can accommodate Fiddlehead Farm’s unique CSA format. With the help of LFM’s newest Subscription Builder software features, the farm is able to give CSA members the power to fully customize the items in their farm share.

“Customizable subscriptions are a no-brainer for me,” says Heather. “[Fiddlehead Farm’s CSA members] are making the commitment to local and the commitment to eating what’s in season, so I can at least give them the choice of everything that’s in the garden.”

Subscription Builder: How it Works

Heather walked us through the step-by-step process of using Subscription Builder, how it helps her to sell shares and to support her farm’s mission of a more accessible model for local food.

Each week, Heather puts together a box of produce worth around $25 or $35. A few days before members pick up their shares, they have the option to add, remove, or replace certain items in the share. LFM’s software will then adjust their price accordingly. This is important to Heather.

“I want them to pay for what they’re getting. And I don’t want them to pay for anything they’re not getting. Subscription Builder allows us to ensure that we are only charging members for the vegetables they’re getting, and not penalizing them for wanting something different or for not wanting as many vegetables this week. We grow food and I want it to be eaten.”

The Process: How to List Subscriptions For Sale

Each week, Heather goes out into the field to list what’s for sale this week, “I list things on my clipboard—sometimes I take my phone to update it live but usually I just write it on my clipboard first. LFM automatically fills all the leftover inventory from the prior week, and then I scroll through the list to see what inventory I need to adjust for the current week.”

Customers are able to edit the items in their weekly subscription from Fiddlehead Farm.

LFM makes it easy to keep inventory up-to date: “All the products I have listed are already there. The products are already listed from last week if I didn’t sell them all. So it’s really easy to update on a weekly basis what is actually available for my customers.”

Next, Heather sets up her weekly farm share in Subscription Builder. “The software shows me the total value of the items going into the shares.  Sometimes I edit the value because I want to keep my shares at $25 or $35 a box. Then I just say ‘create orders’ and the system just puts all the vegetables into people’s carts for them.”

“Every week I fill the basket with what I think is the best of the garden. I love the control I have for filling those baskets. It means that I can rotate different crops through to make sure members get a good taste of the fields throughout the season.”

The Process: What the Customer Sees

Once Heather choses what’s in the box each week, she uses Subscription Builder to provide full flexibility for her 300 CSA members.

“And then customers have whatever time I’ve specified to edit what’s in their box. They can use the pencil to change the number of products, they can use the trash can to take something out, and then they can click on continue shopping to add other items into their cart.”

Specific LFM Features that Fiddlehead Farm Loves

Heather shared with us a few reasons that LFM stood above the competition when it comes to selling local food online.

1. A Price Point That Doesn’t Punish Growth

Heather appreciates LFM’s straightforward pricing system, where we never charge a percentage of sales fee.

LFM’s business model makes sense from my perspective. You build the platform, I pay for it on an annual basis. I get the software and the volume of my members or sales doesn’t change what you’re providing me. And I really appreciate that LFM is not charging me a percentage cut of my sales, which is brutal and so true of most other platforms. That’s very important to me.

Heather also finds LFM’s help documentation for customers quite useful. “I’ll have a question, and in a couple of clicks I’ll be like ‘yes! This is it!’. And that’s really good.”

“You’ve got a really amazing online support manual, which makes it much easier to go in and answer my own questions and figure out how things work. There are lots of screenshots, which helps.”

A veggie box from Fiddlehead Farm!

2. A Supportive Team

“One of the things I really like about LFM is that it’s a small tech support team—It’s not like I’m talking to ten different people all the time. It’s an established platform, there’s not crazy bugs to deal with. You guys know what you’re doing, you know how to do it.”

3. Common Goals

Heather sees shared goals between Local Food Marketplace and her own farm.

“So much of our farm is based on efficiency, what makes sense, and what’s simple to do. It feels like LFM’s approach to running an online system is very similar to my approach to running a small farm. It just makes sense.”

4. Control Your Own Data

Heather appreciates using a flexible, customizable platform that truly feels like her own. “I have control. I can do pretty much everything.”

Having access to sales data and reporting is also hugely helpful in making decisions from season to season. “The platform provides the sales data and information we need to modify our production based on what people are actually eating.”

Because at the end of the day, “we don’t want to produce more, we want to produce better.”

Expanding to Other Markets

Planting at Fiddlehead Farm.

LFM’s unique inventory management capabilities have also allowed Fiddlehead Farm to expand its sales to wholesale markets.

“LFM has really provided me with a more professional way to go about selling wholesale.

The same inventory I’m listing for CSA is available for wholesale orders. This was a really big win for us—We have not had a solid wholesale system yet, and there are a number of local restaurants who want local food. I’m happy to help them get it, provided we have a system in place.

I’m happy with the system and the way it’s working, so I feel confident to take on those extra restaurants, which I didn’t feel capable of until joining LFM. So it really boosted our ability and confidence in pursuing other sales opportunities as well.”

Heather’s Advice for Transitioning to a New Software Platform

For Heather, “the transition to LFM was a no brainer.” If you’re considering changing your software platform, feel free to contact us for a free consultation. And read on for Heather’s advice.

Firstly, try to plan ahead so that you’re onboarding before your busy season, not in the heart of summer.

Secondly, set up a FAQ page for your customers.  Local food shoppers will have a range of tech knowledge or experience with shopping online. To help her customers shop more smoothly, Heather set up an online FAQ. “I’m in the field, so I’d like to give my customers all the tools to answer any questions they have on their own.”

Finally, plan some office time for your first few months “live.” There will always be a learning curve for both you and your customers when settling into a new online system. Setting aside some time early on to really set things up the right way can make all the difference. 

Heather advises, “The more your can get to your customers answers before they ask the question the better!” This is where communication via emails and an online FAQ come in. Now that Fiddlehead Farm is fully setup in LFM, Heather is impressed by how few emails she gets from customers. And she doesn’t have to spend too much time online either “The actual time I spend using the LFM portal is maybe three hours a week. It’s mostly working out the details of what I want to include in my veggie box that ties up my time. Once I get to the input stage, it’s nice and quick!”

Looking for more ways to grow your business and save time? Check out some free resources for farmers and food hubs:

• • • Read about how LFM helps one food hub work with over 50 producers:
      • “What helps is that LFM is organized in a way that as producers, we list inventory ourselves, set prices, and describe our own products. We maintain the transparency of sourcing—you can see where every product comes from and customers value that.” –Kate Donald, Stout Oak Farm
    • Looking to save time? Here’s how to gain 20 hours a week.
    • Check out our free Guide to CSA Retention
    • Want to keep up with all things Local Food Marketplace? Join our email list!

The post Creating Customizable CSAs with Fiddlehead Farms first appeared on Local Food Marketplace.