5 Fears in Starting a CSA
5 Fears in Starting a CSA
And how you overcome them.
If you are a small scale grower, you may have already started a CSA or maybe you are contemplating starting one. Here are five questions that might keep you up at night and how you can overcome them.
1. What if you don't have enough flowers? If your flowers don’t all come in at the right time, buy some from another farmer or distributor to supplement. When you are just starting out, you are learning how to forecast and plan accordingly. I used to worry about this all the time but I've realized my customers don't mind if I have to source from another local grower and I enjoy supporting other growers who are better at growing different things than I am. Going forward, take notes to be better next year so you won't have to supplement as much because it is always more profitable to take from your own garden.
2. What if your flowers don't bloom on the weeks you schedule the CSA? Skip a week, or two. This spring in particular is about 2 weeks behind years past for us in Colorado so I told my customers that we are taking a break in May and will finish the last two weeks of our Spring CSA in June when the peonies are blooming. They are absolutely fine with it and understand. CSA customers are the most flexible of all our customers.
3. What if a storm comes and does major damage? The nature of a CSA is there is shared risk. If damage is significant than be honest with your customers. You may both be out 1 or 2 weeks of flowers but that is the risk in agriculture. If the damage is not that significant and you could fulfill the week by supplementing from other farms--do it-- or just offer a small posey of what you do have.
4. How do you price a CSA? Pricing your CSA is different on each farm but since you are selling directly to consumers it should be at retail pricing. Most of these customers love to buy extras and they will be your biggest supporters. Our CSA is not as profitable as weddings and events but it gives us tons of good exposure and is the way we love to build relationships with our community, plus it gives our farm consistent sales.
5. What if you get sick of making bouquets every week? Hire someone to make them for you. During the high season, have apprentices or part-time helpers make all the CSA bouquets so you can focus on designing for events or weddings. CSA bouquets are market bouquets and are made production style so they are very easy and fast to put together. With our 50 member CSA, we make all 50 bouquets in under 1 hour. This is how you keep the price down. Its very different then bridal bouquets which take 20-30 minutes per bouquet.
I hope by answering these five questions you'll feel better about launching a CSA this season.
Rest well my friend, it will all work out.
Gina
p.s. If you are looking for a deep dive into a particular subject matter (ie. How to get dahlias to bloom consistently for your CSA....then check out our workshops on our website.)