How Wolf Creek Family Farm serves their customers sustainably and successfully
“You gotta put yourself out there and give people the ability to find you, in whatever manner is easiest for them — whether that’s on their smartphone or in person at the farmers market,” explains Karin Velez of Wolf Creek Family Farm.
With the rise in popularity of farm-to-table dinners, CSA boxes and direct-from-the-farm meal kits, consumers are turning to search engines to find local farms. Karin and Arcenio Velez, owners of Wolf Creek Family Farm, have taken notice and are putting online sales into practice. Leveraging the traditional farmers market, a CSA program and home delivery, these farmers embody the future of farm-to-table.
Meet the Farmers
Arcenio and Karin are former U.S. Marines turned farmers. Their farm, Wolf Creek Family Farm, is in Peculiar, Missouri. What started as a large home garden on five acres has turned into a fifteen-year operation involving their five children and various family and friends.
As their five acres expanded to 40, their mission to provide fresh and wholesome food straight from their farm remained constant. They focus on fresh, sustainably grown produce and naturally raised pork and eggs. Like many family farms across the country, the Valezes wanted to feed their family and communities with food they could feel proud of. The farm-to-table mentality is at the forefront of their business.
Becoming Online Adopters
From the early days, Karin knew that being online was important for exposure. “We’ve always had some sort of online presence or online sale mechanism. From day one, I used a local directory to advertise our CSA.”
But as the farm evolved, their needs also changed. They wanted to have an online system to help them manage their CSA and to offer e-commerce to their retail customers. The days of using spreadsheets, phone calls and emails to manage their incoming orders were coming to a close; they realized they needed an online tool to do the work for them.
In 2020, they pivoted to fully online sales. With the closure of all the local farmers markets, they needed a way to communicate with customers, collect their orders and information and organize delivery. Local Line, an e-commerce platform built for family farms like theirs, offered all the features they sought. The ability to organize information incoming, manage both their CSA and online sales, and provide in-depth sales data for their business was all made possible through Local Line.
Today, with markets back to full capacity, they are fully utilizing the strong online presence they’ve built and are accepting pre-orders ahead of market days.
Making E-commerce Work
Every Monday, Karin surveys the farm and estimates the harvest for the week. They upload their predicted inventory into their Local Line store. Their CSA members always get a share of what is harvested weekly, but if they want to add something on top of their order, they can jump into their retail store and include additional products. CSA boxes can be collected weekly at the designated pickup location.
In addition to their CSA box program and produce, they also sell pork and eggs through their online store. As soon as their pork products return from the butcher, Karin uploads them for purchase; the same goes for eggs when they become available. Selling these products online encourages retail customers and CSA members to browse through and purchase additional products listed in their store, enabling more sales per order.
Topping it all off, Karin offers delivery directly to customers outside of their CSA box program. The order cadence runs Friday through Wednesday, for delivery on Thursdays. These customers can also select a pickup option at their multiple farmers market locations.
“This is a popular option for those who’d rather order and pick up to ensure they have the first ripe tomatoes coming in for the season. It works out well for us because we already have guaranteed sales before we get to the markets. The worst thing in the middle of the summer is when you’ve been working all these months to get all this wonderful produce, and then you don’t sell out at the market. Pre-selling for the market works well for our customers, and it works well for us too,” explains Karin.
Meet Me Halfway?
Offering delivery versus pickup (or both!) is an important decision for farmers to make when starting online sales. Delivery can be an added benefit to customers but can quickly become overwhelming or too expensive for the farmers to maintain sustainably.
Wolf Creek Family Farm decided to offer both options to their retail customers. In the winter, they leverage delivery, as the markets are closed and there is more time around the farm to organize everything. They don’t grow year-round at the moment, so they focus on pork and egg production during this season. Once the market season starts, delivery drops off. Many customers choose to come to market to enjoy the ambiance. But after the first few weeks, home delivery picks back up.
It was difficult to get started with delivery, as they didn’t have the right platform. They were working with an online space that wasn’t designed for farmers or agribusiness. They were looking for a system that would let them host scheduled delivery days instead of on-demand delivery. With Local Line, Karin can customize delivery days per zone, set order lead times, and control product availability by price list.
When they found a system that could support delivery, they needed to find a cadence that worked.
“Initially, we separated our delivery areas by zones: counties to the North and South of us. My husband would take one zone, and I would take the other. We did it on two different days. What we found was the delivery days themselves were shorter, but it took a lot of time out of our week. Now, we have consolidated to one day in the week. I do North, he does South. It does take a lot of the day, but after the day’s done — we’re done for the week.”
Through trial and error, they found a system that works for their farm. “Your customers are going to adjust. As a farmer, you sometimes experience analysis paralysis, where you know you have to make a decision but feel like you have to factor in so many things. The truth is: if your customers want to order from you, they’ll continue to order from you.”
From the Field to the Online Store
The biggest shift many farmers market sellers experience when moving online is predicting inventory. When selling at the market, farmers can harvest what’s available and bring it along. With online sales, the order cycle runs a week before harvesting, especially for produce.
How does a farmer get good at predicting their inventory?
“Honestly, it’s just a lot of practice,” explains Karin, “But there also has to be an understanding with the customer, which is where building strong customer relationships come in. We make sure to be very engaged with our customers and communicate with them frequently. Your customers have to understand that this is an agricultural product, and therefore things happen. I might estimate that I’m going to be able to pick x, y and z this week, but we might have severe rainstorms, or too many that we’ve picked have bug damage and can’t be sold.”
That’s the difference between shopping at a grocery store and directly from the farm. To operate within a short supply chain, direct communication between producer and buyer is essential.
As for tips Karin would offer to those just starting out, she says, “Start by underestimating your inventory. That way you’re under-promising and over-delivering. If you happen to have more, you can pivot those sales to an alternative sales channel, such as selling at the market.”
With most skills, the more you practice, the better you get. Yet backing that experience with data goes a long way. Karin relies on extensive record keeping to compare what she’s harvesting that week and what she ends up selling.
“Start with this. Walk through your fields with a little notebook and write down what you anticipate harvesting that week. Go back at the end of the week and see how accurate you were. This will allow you to grow confidence over time.”
The beauty of having an online ordering system? Automated record-keeping.
Instead of sifting through spreadsheets to find past sales records, Karin can download precisely what she needs. Each week she filters by delivery or pickup, location, and date. The reports will tell her average profits, which products sold best, which customers are returning week after week, and more. “Record keeping is hard to get into, especially if you’re super busy. But trust me — it’s essential.”
Finding Customers for Life
Above all else, the success of their online program is dependent on their customer relationships.
Most of their existing customer base came through face-to-face interaction at the farmers market. The market is a huge part of their business, and for now, at least, they don’t see themselves not selling at least at one market.
As an experiment, they opened an on-farm store to encourage customers to pick up on location. But they quickly realized that their farm was too out of the way, and customers would have to make it a destination to get out there. It didn’t fit into their weekly routine. Markets were the way to go.
That face-to-face interaction is important to create a first impression. Beyond interacting in person, Karin is leveraging online communication. She uses email marketing to stay “top of mind.” Each month, they send out a monthly newsletter sharing stories and pictures from the farm.
“It doesn’t have to be fancy. You don’t necessarily have to include a lot of pictures. It can just be a note that says this is what we’re doing at the farm right now, and we appreciate you as customers. It really goes a long way,” says Karin. “Even if I just send one email in the middle of the month, it spurs people to jump online and place an order. Or, they come to see us at the farmers market.”
Social media also plays a role in their marketing strategy. “The funny thing about social media is I seem to spend more time on it in the slower part of the seasons because I have so much more time. But in those seasons, there’s not as much stuff to take pictures of or talk about.”
Even if she has fewer things going on at the farm, Karin finds that continuing to be in front of her customers — even in the off-season, with less exciting content — is enough to keep them engaged with her business. “Keep your logo in front of them. It drives them back to you over and over and over again!”
Is Selling Online More Work?
When reflecting on her process and the success they’ve seen over the last few years, Karin reflects that at the end of the day, selling online isn’t more work — it’s a different kind of work.
“If you’re a direct seller, you’re going to have to work for your sales no matter what. Whether it’s standing at a farmers market for five hours or delivering directly to your customers — whatever it is — you’re going to have to put some energy into selling. Is it more work than other sales channels we have? No — it’s an additional sales channel, and you just have to work it into your routine.”
Jumping into online sales might seem overwhelming, but it just takes some trial and error. Whether it’s dropping a delivery day, trialing different pickup days, or underestimating your harvest for a few weeks, every new venture has a trial period.
“It’s not going to be perfect the first time,” Karin says. “Nothing ever is. Just know that there are going to be some mistakes along the way, and most likely, your customers are going to understand. Be gracious, tweak your processes, and at some point, you’ll figure out what works for you.
“At the end of the day, selling online is absolutely going to be better for your bottom line than if you never start.”
To learn more about Wolf Creek Family farm, check out their website: wolfcreekfamilyfarm.com. To learn more about how Local Line can help you sell your farm’s products online, go to site.localline.ca.
