03/17/2020
It is, despite shortages of other things, time to hoard carrots!
One of the many unforeseen consequences of all things closing is that we may not be able to sell all of our carrots this spring. Our largest customers in the winter are public schools and colleges. Most of them will still be buying and serving food, but at much much lower amounts than normal. As you know, farms run on super slim margins, so when one, like ours currently, is faced with losing thousands of dollars in sales, it is a big deal. Thousands of other small businesses, along with countless individuals, will be or are already facing similar losses due to all the cancellations and slowing of activity. We all will be leaning hard on each other this spring and summer
Which leads us to our carrot sale this week! We normally sell them for $1.25 per pound in the winter, but this week we will be selling them for $.90 per pound, our usual wholesale price. They will be for sale by the 25 pound bag (these will be food service grade). We know this is a lot of carrots at one time, but we do not have the extra labor at this point to separate the bags into smaller amounts, and we can't have customers grabbing carrots from a communal bin. We want to minimize the points of contact with each carrot. We have been inspected by the USDA for food safety practices for several years now and have lots of procedures in our daily routine to protect your health every day, and have increased our vigilance and caution even more lately. Our crew wears gloves while sorting and also washes their hands frequently, and the carrots that we are selling this week were washed weeks ago and have not had any human contact since then.
These carrots will be good in your fridge for 1 to 2 months. They could also be kept in a well managed cooler in your garage (please make sure the temperature stays close to 33 degrees for maximum storage and flavor). They could also be made into soups to be frozen for future eating or in carrot juice to aid in your health.
In order to limit exposure, we will keep 5 or so bags on a cart outside of the greenhouse (north side) and you can grab a bag and put your money in the box. PLEASE BRING EXACT CHANGE OR A CHECK OR PAY VIA VENMO OR SEND A CHECK IN THE MAIL. IF PAYING BY VENMO, PLEASE LEAVE A NOTE IN THE BOX TELLING US THAT YOU ARE DOING SO. WE WILL NOT HAVE A PEN THERE TO LIMIT CONTACT EXPOSURE, SO PLEASE WRITE A NOTE AT HOME OR IN YOUR CAR.
IT IS CRITICAL THAT YOU DO NOT COME IN THE BARN THIS WEEK. PLEASE DO NOT OPEN THE BARN DOOR, OR KNOCK. If you need to contact us, please email us at [email protected]
Our crew will be in the barn washing the remaining bins of carrots, but we do not want to expose them to too many people.
Sorry for the extra precautions but as a food establishment, we hope you understand.
The carrots will be out from 9 to 5 on Tuesday and Wednesday. They are $22.50 per bag.
Be carrot secure and help support a small local farm at the same time!
