Hi All,
I recently posted some thoughts on authenticity in marketing and how critical it is to maintaining your customer's loyalty and keeping your business afloat. Today I came across this recent NY Times article, which further emphasizes the point. If you are selling someone else's product that you didn't grow or produce, tell your customers - they'll appreciate your honesty. When I hear a farmers market vendor share credit for a product they are selling I think more highly of them. We all need to be honest, clear and consistent in our marketing statements and our product offerings!Joan New York Times, July 30, 2008 Farmer Deals With Drop in Business and Credibility By INDRANI SEN
AT his market stall at the Brooklyn Flea in Fort Greene on Sunday, JayDines, an upstate farmer, sat slumped on one of his plastic meat coolers asthunderclouds gathered above. It was his second and final week at themarket, and only a handful of customers browsing antiques, vintage clothingand crafts stands showed any interest in his plump all-beef hot dogs andthick-cut bacon.
This was a far cry from last summer, when Mr. Dines was serving throngs ofcustomers in nine farmers' markets in New York City and at least sevenoutside the city, selling meat he advertised as "pasture-raised." His franksearned praise from food writers, blog buzz and rave reviews at Sparky'sAll-American Food, the hipster hot dog joints in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, andthe East Village that have since closed.
But in November, Greenmarket, which runs 45 farmers' markets in the fiveboroughs, threw him out of the program. Greenmarket's organizers took therare step of suspending Mr. Dines for selling meat he did not raise on hisfarm, a violation of their rule that vendors must raise, grow or makeeverything they sell at the markets.
Michael Hurwitz, Greenmarket's director, who would not detail what Mr. Dineshad done, said, "We at Greenmarket take our grow-your-own policy andstandards very seriously."
But Nina Planck, a former director of Greenmarket, said that after visitingfarms five years ago, she raised concerns about what she thought might havebeen violations of the producer-only rule by Mr. Dines and at least twoother farmers. She said she did not see enough animals on the Dines farm tojustify his level of sales.
"I had great doubts about Dines's compliance with the producer-only rule,"said Ms. Planck, who was director of the Greenmarket for about six months in2003. She was fired after many farmers objected to changes she tried to makein the program.
Ms. Planck said she faced resistance to enforcing the producer-only rule.
"When I found no corn on a farm that was selling corn, I went back to theoffice and said, I think we have a problem here," she recalled. She said shewas discouraged from following up.
Mr. Hurwitz declined to comment on why Dines Farms was not suspended untilNovember 2007, but said, "Our farmers are in compliance, and when they'renot we take it very seriously."
In the 17 months that he has worked with Greenmarket, Mr. Hurwitz said, fivefull-time and part-time inspectors have visited 122 farms and issued 13violations. Three vendors have been suspended over the producer-only rule.
Mr. Dines, who for five years sold his meat at Greenmarkets in JacksonHeights in Queens; Cortelyou, Fort Greene and Greenpoint in Brooklyn; andMurray Hill, West 97th Street, Tompkins Square, TriBeCa and Union Square inManhattan, admitted he had on occasion sold meat he had bought from othersand has placed his animals in other farms or facilities to be raised.
He argued, however, that Greenmarket officials were unrealistic to expectthat farmers in the Northeast's harsh climate would sell only what theygrew.
"The disconnect is they expect people up here to produce everything," hesaid in an interview at the Flea on Sunday. "And financially, weatherwise,heatwise, expensewise, it's impossible to do. You don't have theinfrastructure in this state to support agriculture like you do down southand out west."
Bob Lewis, a state agriculture official and a founder of Greenmarket in1976, said the group's other 186 farmers manage to follow the producer-onlyrule.
"I would say that the success of Greenmarket demonstrates that aproducer-only policy is viable in New York," Mr. Lewis said. "Many farmshave diversified themselves while meeting the Greenmarket's rules."
Other Greenmarket vendors said Mr. Dines's behavior damaged the credibilityof all farmers.
"It hurts the business," said Laurent Danthine, a co-owner of ArcadianPastures, an organic meat farm in Sloansville, N.Y. "Farming at a smallscale is hard enough as it is, and when you have things like that happen itdoesn't make it easier."
When Mr. Danthine replaced Mr. Dines's stall in the Greenpoint Greenmarket,some customers complained that his prices were higher.
"What's tough is that you do it right, but then you have someone who comesand says they have the same product you sell and they're doing it at a lowerprice," he said. "I'm not against people who raise chicken without organicfeed, but be true to what you're selling."
Dines Farms's Web site, dinesfarms.net, advertises all-natural andpasture-raised meats, including chicken, beef, pork, lamb, duck, turkey andrabbit. The Web site also says that the meat has no hormones, growthstimulants, animal byproducts, pesticides, herbicides or antibiotics andthat "all meats are processed and packaged on the farm withoutpreservatives."
Mr. Dines said he began boarding out his animals to other farms andfacilities in 2003, after he hurt his shoulder in an accident and could notwork in the winter as a plumber. He could not afford to build winter housingfor his livestock or fencing for his cows, he said, so he arranged for someof his animals to be raised on other farms and hatcheries, which he wouldnot identify.
He has no cows on his farm but said he had about 30 off site, at locationshe did not disclose.
He said he buys chickens from farmers who "have too much," and he has boughtboxes of chicken thighs for sausage from a supplier in Georgia who he saidsupplied pasture-raised birds.
Because his on-site slaughtering plant is only for poultry and rabbits, Mr.Dines said, he uses the meat processor Van Wie Natural Foods in Hudson,N.Y., to make his beef hot dogs, buying some meat from them to supplementhis own.
Richard H. Van Wie, the owner of the company, said he had made sausages forMr. Dines, but not hot dogs. When told this, Mr. Dines said his hot dogswere made at another plant, which he would not name.
"I'm not a political person," Mr. Dines said. "I'm trying to make a living.I'm trying to keep from losing the farm and not bother anyone."
To prevent cheating, Greenmarket has an extensive oversight system, Mr.Hurwitz said. Farmers must hand in crop plans, submit to regular inspectionsof their farms, and allow inventories of their stalls to make sure they areselling only what they grow or raise. When it comes to prepared foods likepickles, jams and baked goods, he said, "you're required to source locallywhatever can be sourced locally." Dairies are allowed to buy some milk andcream from local farmers to make cheese, butter and yogurt.
On a sunny afternoon last week at Mr. Dines's farm on 130 acres in Oak Hill,turkeys pecked in a dark, fetid-smelling barn, rabbits lay on their belliesin stacked wire cages, and farmhands poured a box of fluffy yellow chicksinto a lighted enclosure. Outside, ducks and geese waddled in a graveldriveway, sheep clustered in a shady corner of a meadow, and three snoringsows suckled piglets in dilapidated pens oozing with mud from a recent rain.A pile of meat coolers in a trailer told of Mr. Dines's fall from grace atthe Greenmarket.
The plant manager, Jon Payton, said there were 1,000 chickens, 500 chicksand 560 turkeys on the farm, but those numbers could not be confirmed on thebrief visit. He said about 60 to 70 lambs were boarding with a nearbyfarmer.
Mr. Dines said he had no plans to reapply to Greenmarket. Organizers of theBrooklyn Flea did not invite Mr. Dines back after hearing of his troubleswith the Greenmarket.
For now, Mr. Dines said, he is pursuing business with large institutions, aswell as direct sales through his Web site. He also participates incommunity-supported agriculture programs, where he makes weekly deliveriesto customers, and he sells to restaurants. He declined to identify therestaurants or to quantify how much meat he sells.
"It seems like everyone wants to be in my business," he said. "I have to dowhat I have to do to make a living. Nobody's giving me nothing. Except ahard time."
