The Journey of your Farm Box
Ever wonder about how your box gets from our farm to your kitchen? There are many detailed steps involved in this process and we wanted to give you an inside look at a day in the life at our farm!
Harvest Inventory
Each week we do a field walk, where we take notes on which crops are coming in and available. Then, we update our inventory for the upcoming week for you all to order! This is a projected inventory of harvest and sometimes numbers can change based on quality or weather conditions impact on the crops. We do add in buffers, but this is why we can have slight changes in expected availability since we have to do our best estimate.
Creating Labels
Labels are printed after the ordering period has closed for the upcoming week and our admin team makes notes on each one to make the swap changes and item additions stand out for our pack team. Have you ever noticed highlights or circles on your labels? That is an internal process we created to avoid mistakes while packing orders. It takes many hours every morning for our team to do them by hand (shout-out to Jill and Julie!). We have made updates over the years based on customer feedback to offer more customizable options like the swap feature. We love being able to offer these options so that customers can receive the veggies they want, but since the majority of our orders are customized, this does make it a more detail-oriented process for our admin and pack teams.
Creating Routes
Creating delivery routes is a similarly detailed process, as we need to make sure that all of our routes are optimized to minimize drive time. We also have to ensure that pick up location orders arrive before the designated start time and take restaurant operating hours into account for their orders. With many time parameters to accommodate, this is why we are not able to accept customer requests for specific delivery times and appreciate everyone’s understanding with that! We also input all special delivery note requests by hand and print them out for the drivers so that they are aware when they get to each stop.
Order Packing
In the morning, we assemble all of the swap items and add-on items after they are harvested and make sure each number is correct. Each box goes down the pack line (see video above!) and items are added one by one by hand based on the label. On the pack line, we also double check everything and make sure the number of boxes per person is indicated for the driver before the box is closed up.
Delivery
Each box is loaded onto the van and orders and double checked to make sure that each stop has the designated box(es). Our awesome team of drivers departs the farm early each morning to deliver orders to our customers’ homes, pick up locations, and restaurants! The drivers continue on their routes making sure to take note of special delivery requests and navigate traffic along the way. Then the box arrives at each stop for customers to receive their produce and start cooking up!
As you can see from the steps above, an IMMENSE amount of details go into our process from harvest, to pack, to delivery. There are many points of failure and sometimes things can go wrong. We try our very best to avoid mistakes, but we are human and sometimes inventory can be mis-estimated, the weather can turn a crop, we can miss highlighting an item on a label, or a box can be missed being double checked.
We know that customization is wanted, so we have been adjusting our systems over the years to offer this option, but errors can happen. We are grateful for the support and understanding of each and every one of our customers!
Interested in joining our CSA? We are still accepting members and would love to grow for you this season! Learn more about our subscription options and sign up below!