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Episode Summary
If you’re a farmer doing farmer’s markets, then there’s a high chance that your Saturdays are all blocked out for the entire season. What if there was a way to get your Saturdays back while also guaranteeing sales every week?
In this episode of Carrot Cashflow, Jesse Way and Meghan Brandenburg of Milky Way Farm in Ontario, Canada talk about how opening up an online farm store has not just improved their farm business but their quality of life as well.
Today’s Guest: Jesse Way & Meghan Brandenburg
Jesse Way and Meghan Brandenburg are the farmers behind Milky Way Farm in Ontario, Canada. Following a regenerative approach to growing food, Jesse and Meghan focus their farming efforts on season extension to be able to offer fresh, local produce to their markets all year round.
Relevant Links
Milky Way Farm – Website | Instagram
In this episode of Carrot Cashflow
- Diego introduces the episode’s guest, Jesse Way & Meghan Brandenburg (00:40)
- Jesse and Meghan’s thoughts on CSA vs farmer’s market sales (03:17)
- Complementary sales outlets (03:44)
- From full market farm vision to online farm store (06:32)
- The catalyst to push the farming business online (07:53)
- Initial worries and challenges of moving sales purely online (09:25)
- Learning selling platforms as they went along (09:50)
- More virtual back-and-forth with customers (10:25)
- Managing inventory when selling online (12:37)
- Inventory guessing and refunding customers (15:33)
- Tying in available produce with opening the online store (16:14)
- Limited online store access works fine with sales (18:24)
- Scarcity and a sense of urgency to purchase produce early (20:00)
- Higher average sale per customer in the online store (23:45)
- How Jesse and Meghan list their products on their online store (27:06)
- Having many different vegetables to draw more customers in (30:09)
- The importance of ensuring a great customer experience (31:40)
- Milky Way’s biggest source of attracting new customers (32:49)
- How selling produce in an online store improved Jesse’s quality of life (33:58)
- Jesse and Meghan’s thoughts on selling solely online as a new farmer (37:02)
- There’s no reason not to add on an online store (38:51)
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