The Birdhouse Farmers Market (pictured above) is scheduled to reopen in May, while the South of the James Market, after being closed last weekend, will transition to a drive-thru model this Saturday for the first time. (Photo by Eileen Mellon)
Tucked in the verdant Shenandoah Valley, Clay Trainum’s family-run operation, Autumn Olive Farms, has carved out a reputation as a chef favorite, and its heritage-breed Berkabaw and Ossabaw pork are common sights on restaurant menus throughout Virginia and beyond.
For Trainum, the last week and a half has been a roller coaster. “We lost 90% of our restaurant business in 36 hours last Thursday and Friday,” Trainum says, “and now [it’s] 100%. “The last week was devastating for us. We have been working on our pivot to retail — an online store, drop points, increased butcher shop sales.”
As restaurants have been forced to cease operations in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, businesses adjacent to the industry are feeling the impact in seismic waves. Virginia farmers who supply the commonwealth’s restaurants have lost the lion’s share of their income, and the viability of their businesses has become a very real concern.
Jo Pendergraph of Manakintowne Specialty Growers echoes Trainum. “As a chef-driven farm, we typically fill 60-plus restaurant orders a week,” she says. On March 16, they had zero restaurant orders, and for the entire week, three. At the same time, online sales, which typically comprise 20% of Manakintowne’s business, tripled, suggesting a new way forward. Manakintowne has quickly adapted to offer CSA share and “Virginia Grown Staples” boxes online, filled with locally sourced produce and eggs and goods such as sunflower oil and honey.
“There is a lot to consider,” Pendergraph adds. “We need to scale pickups so that people are not congregating. ... We are feeling our way as we see what our restaurant model and infrastructure can support in direct sales."
Locally, Fall Line Farms & Local Roots online farmers market has seen a dramatic spike in consumers’ interest in locally grown produce, dairy and meat. According to Marketing and Promotions Director Katie Hoffman, the largely volunteer-run nonprofit saw a 30% increase in membership and a doubling of sales last week, forcing them to temporarily freeze buying pages in order to reconfigure their system and serve more customers.
Hoffman says, at a time when many people are panicking and hoarding, the crisis is bringing out the best in the Fall Line Farms & Local Roots team, its board and its members, all of whom have had to adapt to changes including new safety protocols and consolidated drop-off locations.
“I was expecting people to be cranky and out of sorts about having to go several more miles to pick up their orders, but I wasn’t giving our members enough credit. Not only did they say, ‘No problem,’ they also said, ‘Thank you for what you’re doing.’”
Being able to bridge the gap between small farmers and consumers is central to the mission of the Center for Rural Culture, the nonprofit that houses Fall Line Farms & Local Roots. Hoffman says, “What I saw last week was that our producers were able to shift at least some of their inventory over to us and, if not make up the deficit completely, at least go a long way toward covering their costs, so we’re just happy that we were there for them when all this started to happen.”
At a regional level, the nonprofit food hub 4P Foods, which acquired the distribution branch of Charlottesville’s Local Food Hub in the summer of 2019, connects small farms to consumers through an online distribution platform. In response to COVID-19, 4P Foods launched a GoFundMe fundraising campaign for $100,000 to address issues of food access throughout Virginia, D.C. and Maryland, with the ambitious goal of helping small farmers remain operational while creating a more equitable food system.
“When the business closures began, it became clear that there is a great need for collective emergency response to support local farms, food hubs and small businesses, while ensuring that everyone — especially those most vulnerable to food insecurity — has access to good food,” says 4P Foods Brand Manager Abbey Gleason.
4P Foods is discussing the possibility of partnering with Richmond's Hatch Kitchen to use its space and team of culinary professionals to process seasonal produce from farms into ready-made meals for pickup or direct delivery to vulnerable populations including home-bound individuals.
“We are seeing this pandemic as a time when many people are opening their eyes for the first time as to where their food comes from, who grew it and how, and what the true cost and value of good food is,” Gleason says.
Since the COVID-19-related social distancing guidelines began, the future of farmers markets has been in a constant state of flux, with policy changes at the state level happening several times per day. In the past week, the area’s biggest farmers market, GrowRVA’s South of the James, has gone from being canceled temporarily to canceled indefinitely and is now back on, using a drive-thru system.
For Tomten Farm owners Autumn Campbell and Brian Garretson, the majority of their income comes from the South of the James Market and the Birdhouse Farmers Market.
Campbell says transitioning to a business model that offers home delivery isn’t feasible for their farm, which is over an hour away from the city in Prince Edward County, and pivoting to offer multiple drop-off points presents difficulties for their two-person operation. She says she’s looking for strong leadership at the state level to keep the markets running smoothly. “My hope is that markets, with safety protocols in place, will start back up, because I believe that there are ways to get food to people safely in a four-hour window of time,” adding that, as the distribution of the food supply is pushed to its limits, “We need the government to see markets not as events or food establishments but as an essential food access point.”
“Right now we’re in a really heightened time of social change, and we’re not used to changes beyond our control at every moment. It’s intense,” but, she adds, “there’s potential to come out in a better place, a more sustainable place.”
