Greenhouse grower in Loudon to offer curbside pickup

The fate of this new curbside sales program by Lef Farms in Loudon may give some indication about how much the coronavirus will help or hurt the direct-to-consumer model used by New Hampshire's many small farms.

"After COVID calms down, curbside might disappear or it might become a staple - we have no idea," said Donald Grandmaison, sales and marketing manager for Lef Farms in Loudon. "You could anticipate farmers markets being filled up, but if COVID goes into summer and people are hesitant to go into crowds, who knows?"

Until the coronavirus struck, Lef (pronounced "leaf") Farms dealt strictly in the wholesale market, with about 20% of sales going to restaurants, according to Grandmaison. The privately held company, which started in 2017 and now sells packages of mixed greens in more than 1,000 outlets in the Northeast, does not give sales figures; Grandmaison said only that sales have tripled since last year.

Their restaurant business has largely disappeared since March, and even though sales to grocery stores like Market Basket, Hannaford, Shaw's and Whole Foods have strengthened, it was a gap that Lef Farms wanted to fill.

At the same time, the company heard a lot more interest from stay-at-home folks who are looking for fresh leafy greens.

"It's always been a very small percentage of phone calls … just a handful of requests," Grandmaison said. "But over the last eight weeks we've probably had 300 requests through Facebook or emails to me."

He estimated that half came from people who wanted to avoid multiple trips to crowded grocery stores because of coronavirus worries and half from people in the Loudon area who want to support local farms. At this time of year, traditional farms don't have much produce to sell so greenhouse operations like Lef Farms have the market mostly to themselves.

Although Grandmaison said the curbside business model is "evolving," the plan is to have all sales done in advance online through a website, LefFarmsCurbside.com and begin pickups this weekend.

"We're trying to do pre-order so they don't have to give us money, give us their card, trying to prevent any kind of exposure. They just pop their trunk, we put it in, and off they go," he said.

Direct-to-consumer sales are a huge part of New Hampshire agriculture, which mostly consists of several thousand small, often part-time farms that don't sell wholesale. Roughly half the $850 million in annual sales as estimated by N.H. Farm Bureau Federation were direct to consumer, which puts New Hampshire at or near the top of states in terms of dependence on that market.

Like all businesses, Lef Farms has been affected by COVID-19. It employs 25 to 35 people full-time but "about one-third of our labor pool" is reluctant to enter the greenhouse or packing rooms right now," Grandmaison said.

"No one's been sick, thank goodness, but our farmers are saying, 'We're not coming in because we're concerned about the health of our family,' " Grandmaison said. In response, Lef Farms is loosening its benefit program so it will cover people who work fewer hours per week.

One ara of potential concern that hasn't proved to be a problem is delivery. Lef Farms can use the fleet of trucks owned by parent company Pleasant View Gardens in Loudon, which hasn't seen any difficulty finding drivers partly because the regional bus service Concord Coach has closed due to COVID-19, making experienced drivers available to hire.

Source: Concordmonitor

Photo Credit: GEOFF FORESTER—Monitor staff

Source: Concord Monitor