QUALITY vs. QUANTITY
Quality vs. Quantity:
Quality is defined as doing things right the first time, ensuring excellence rather than just speed or volume. It acts as a long-term strategy for success!
The Bottom Line: We here at Somers Family Farm are all about you succeeding with your flower purchase, more than making a sale!
In my world, during the Spring and early summer months, there are lots of “insider” chats with fellow growers about pricing, quality, quantity, and a great distaste for big box stores that try to “out-compete” the market of local growers by offering “substitutes” for less than a local grower could ever charge.
Did you know:
FACT #1: True Local Farmers have great difficulty charging what they should to ensure a profit can be made. I think that stems in part from our resourcefulness and always having to pinch pennies because we live in an upside-down state most of our farming lives when it comes to profit. That being said, I believe that there has been some change during the past few years, especially with the explosion of the local food movement, but there is still an honest, real struggle.
FACT #2: No farmer that I know of receives a special “Poor Farmer Price” for seeds, supplies, soil, fertilizer, electricity, propane, repairs etc The list goes on and on. Yet, we often struggle greatly with pricing fairly for both you, the customer, and us, the farmers.
FACT #3: We Farmers are a special group in that we find ways to live on much less than the average wage earner at a regular non-farm job! In doing so, we often underestimate the true cost of doing business, until it shows up at the end of the season.
Back to my chat with a fellow grower. A conversation we have every year. What are we going to charge for each plant, hanging basket, deck pot, herb, and perennial, and is this the year we must raise our prices to compensate for the rise of cost year after year in supplies to produce a beautiful, healthy plant that will, with the proper care, ensure season-long success? It is an uncomfortable conversation at best, and one I really dislike having. It actually causes me great anxiety on many fronts.
QUALITY VS. QUANTITY:
BIG BOX STORES — have a lot of quantity, and though on the outset you may gravitate to the feelings that cost-friendly plants about there, I would encourage you to really think this through. A great example of this is hanging basket petunias, sometimes found at a big box store for $15 a pot. Without experiential knowledge, this sounds like a great purchase. My largest pet peeve of all times are growers from a southern state, with no propane costs and not so much overhead plating what I would call “Carpet Petunias” in a hanging basket, daring to compare to a well-crafted, quality “meant for a hanging basket” mixed petunia arrangement found inside a local grower’s greenhouse. There is no “skin” in the game for the big retailers because they are purchasing ready-to-sell plants, baskets, and arrangements that sometimes actually find their way to them looking halfway decent. They are not properly fertilized for the long term, the soil — the very foundation for their success, is poor quality and not sustainable for the long haul, and the actual species of plants are often used in a way they were never intended by the plant breeder to be used — all for the sake of a quick cheap sale — which moves quantity but has no consideration for quality.
BUYING LOCAL: What takes place in a community when you choose to purchase local from a small grower, which, honestly, is what you may find in this part of the country. First and foremost, quality is the name of the game because many of the trusted growers who are local to our community are never going to put their name on a product that, in the end, will harm their reputation and name, thus harming their business and a customer’s loyalty. When a local grower rubs shoulders, so to speak, with actual community members, outside of a business transaction, quality really matters.
For us here at Somers Family Farm, our season starts in late February when the first shipment of early pants arrive. This is the day the propane heaters get turned on, not skimping on heat, but rather, doing what is best for the plants to ensure steady, healthy growth. This is the day that daily care begins, from the first bag of premium potting mix opened to the last. It is daily care moving forward, and it doesn’t end when that particular plant leaves the greenhouse and goes into your trunk. We are here all summer to answer questions, share growing advice, and help you troubleshoot, because your success matters a lot to us.
BOTTOM LINE: We are striving to make a modest living selling plants and veggies. We strive more to do that with integrity and honesty, knowing that every dollar spent is hard-earned and in these days, metered out a bit more tightly. All that being said, in the end, a living has to be made and sadly, that means prices must reflect our true costs from the ground up.
Before you jump on a great what I would call “Carpet Petunia posing as a self-cleaning, spreading, beautiful hanging basket Petunia” from your local big box store or any grower who is just after a quick sale, consider your local farmer. It is a great thing to keep our dollars flowing into the local commerce rather than non-local.
See you at the Farm Stand, and as always
Growing with you in mind
Kathy
