ALL THE BOUNTY…NONE of the RISK!
Yep, you read that right!
We figure that if you had the urge to take on the risk of a crop failure, you’d go ahead and be a farmer yourself…or at least plant your own vegetables.
You may have heard about CSA Programs. (That’s Community Supported Agriculture.) There are many around, and they can all look quite different – varied in their timing, complexity, cost, AND contents.
While the Bountiful Basket Program is – technically – a CSA-type program, you’ll seldom hear us call it that.
TRUE – the program couldn’t run without support from the community. Without subscriptions… there would be no Bountiful Basket Program.
Unlike some farmers though, who sell their entire crop through a CSA, it’s only one of the ways that we market our products.
In a ‘REAL’ CSA, participants buy a ‘share’ of the farm’s production (or lack thereof) for a season. IF things go well, customers win – and take home overflowing baskets every week (sometimes to the point of excess.) IF, however, it’s a challenging year, shareholders get whatever they get, and hope for better things the next year (…kind of like every farmer or gardener in one of ‘those’ years…come to think of it!). The cost, and the commitment are the same either way.
What’s the DIFFERENCE with our Bountiful Baskets?
Well, keep in mind that we also have the Roadside Stand, Pick-Your-Own Patch, and some wholesale business.
Because we’re not growing ONLY for Bountiful Baskets, we have much greater flexibility.
Here’s an example: If it’s a crummy year for…say…tomatoes, then our wholesale clients will simply need to look elsewhere for tomatoes. We’ll hold onto them for the Roadside Stand and our Bountiful Baskets. (Robbing Peter to pay Paul, you could say?)
Maybe there won’t be a whole pile of tomatoes for anyone that year…but at least there will be some. THEN we make up any shortfall in the baskets with another product (more beans…or cucumbers…). It’s very rare that EVERYTHING fails in the same year…thank goodness!!
So that’s what we mean when we say “NONE of the risk”. Although the product mix in the baskets will change from year to year… (This IS farming! No two years are ever the same!!) One thing is sure – by the end of the season, customers receive the full monetary value of their Bountiful Basket subscription.
To be honest, most years it ends up being the full value…and THEN some!
Let us stress about the yields. You just enjoy them!
