Listen to Your Taste Buds!
The other day, Kjersten and I (Dirk) were talking about marketing. It seems that we live in an age where experts in every industry sell classes on how to be successful, books on how to grow your sales, and webinars on tips and tricks to put yourself ahead of the competition. CSA farming is no different, with our own share of experts peddling “the secret to triple your farm sales in one year” and other gimmicks to solve all a farmer’s problems.
As we were discussing these various strategies, we talked about that the best, most authentic sales technique comes down to believing in what you’re selling. If you don’t believe in your own product, why should someone else should spend their hard-earned resources to acquire what you have to sell them?
This begs the question, what do we believe in enough to sell? Why should anyone think that our vegetables are superior to supermarket vegetables?
I’ve been thinking about this a lot over the last few days, and it really crystalizes down to one thing for me: health. Our vegetables don’t have value because they’re grown on a small farm, or because we have magic soil (it's pretty nice soil, but definitely not magical), or because we’re trying to farm the way people did a hundred years ago (we’re not, our great-grandparents didn't have plastic layers or greenhouses). Our vegetables have value because they are a crucial part of a healthy lifestyle.
Healthy food is real food. Our vegetables are important to a healthy lifestyle because they’re packed full of nutrients, they’re picked at peak freshness, and they’re varieties chosen for more than just performance.
Our vegetables are full of nutrients because they’re grown in healthy soil, maintained with additions of compost, humates, and organic nutrients. Plants that grow in nutrient dense soil take up those same nutrients into their cells, which in turn are taken up into our bodies when we eat them. Vegetables grown in sterile environments, whether hydroponic (grown in water) or heavily irrigated desert soil (Yuma, Arizona), will not have the same levels of nutrients in them even if they physically look identical to the crops we grow on our farm. Soil health is directly correlated to human health, through the plants we eat.
Our vegetables are picked at peak freshness, and delivered to you the next day, rather than sitting in climate-controlled conditions for a week or more as they make their way across the country to a store shelf near you. Peak freshness means that not only will our vegetables keep better in your home, they also have a broader range of nutrients, as they don’t lose as many nutrients during transit.
Finally, our varieties are chosen for taste and nutrition, not just for performance. We may grow varieties that don’t yield as well as commercial standards, but the taste and nutritional density more than make up for any lack in yield.
Taste is the final determinant in nutrition. Our bodies know if a food is good for us or not. Our taste buds are part of our biological system for determining nutritional value. That’s why so many people don’t like store-bought tomatoes – they’re watery and light on nutrients. Choosing produce that tastes good is choosing produce with high nutritional density. The two concepts are inextricably interrelated. Listen to your body’s nutritional wisdom and let your taste buds make the decisions about what you need to eat.
We believe vegetables are part of a healthy diet and vegetables grown in healthy soil are better for you. We want people to live healthy, happy lives. That’s our driving motivation to farm - to help people live in health and joy, enjoy the world around them, and experience the incredible flavor and nutrition of farm-fresh produce.
If you agree, and you want to make health and nutritional wisdom a part of your life this year, then join our Farm Share. It's an easy way to ensure a steady supply of incredibly fresh, densely nutritious produce for the whole season. No special trips to the farmer's market, no mystery produce that goes bad in the fridge, and no wilted produce from distant fields. Nothing but local, nutritious, and sustainable produce, conveniently delivered and amazingly delicious, every time. Join us for this season. Your taste buds will thank you!