Necessity is the mother of invention, and 2020 has proven that time and time again. Case in point: Madison Farmers Unite, an online farmers’ market dreamed up DIY-style in March by Mary White of Honey Bee Bakery.
When the initial COVID-19 shutdown closed indoor farmers’ markets last spring, White says that she, like a lot of other small farmers and artisan food vendors, wondered what they would do. For a baker like White, who sold primarily through such markets year round, there wasn’t an immediate alternative. Yet she saw that farmers who had CSA structures in place with email lists of customers were “ahead of the game.”
White didn’t even have an up-to-date email list of her steady customers, and not much of a social media presence. “I am a shy person,” says White, “but I do know a lot of people, and about business.”
She added an e-commerce function to her own website but recognized that the farmers’ market model of vendors selling different things, together, draws more people, and that model could also work online. “If I pull up in a parking lot and start selling, I’ll get people who are my fans, but that’s it. Diversifying attracts more customers.”
White banded together with Todd Carr of Pecatonica Valley Farms, Joe and Kari Landis of Fungi Farmers, and Wendy Landau of Small Potato Farm. The founding members pulled in some more friends to design a website (by Luluweird Design) and a logo (by Lesley Anne Numbers), and to manage a social media presence on Instagram and Facebook (maintained by Jaundy Brunswick), and Madison Farmers Unite launched.
“I am the founder, which I am happy about and proud of the accomplishment,” says White. But she stresses that the business is very much about sharing information and community connections. “We can give mutual aid to others. I grew up on a farm, and this feels like a good fit.”
Madison Farmers Unite charges 10 percent of sales to list the product to cover administration costs.
As she herself is a “one-woman show,” she says it’s been nice to bond with other producers, getting a lot out of the camaraderie. “With Honey Bee Bakery, I don’t have a business partner, but now I do, in Madison Farmers Unite.”
The five founding members take care of the distribution, collating orders and meeting to exchange products that then are shuttled to their distribution points by Saturday pickup.
White says that Madison Farmers Unite can’t grow much more in terms of adding more vendors, but thinks that the model is very workable for other small groups who want to band together.
In addition to products from the core group, the site also sells for Blue Valley Gardens, Don’s Produce, Savory Accents, Brunkow Cheese, Two Good Farms, Ela Orchard, B’s Honey, Cherokee Bison Farm, Origin Breads and Jaweb Grassfed Beef. Snug Haven Farm is a recent addition to the lineup.
Madison Farmers Unite has a clean, easy-to-use web portal, divided into produce, eggs and dairy, bakery, mushrooms, meat and specialty, and features everything from turnips ($2) to a holiday ham ($70).
Order by Thursday for a Saturday curbside pickup at one of three sites. The north Madison pickup at 4611 Dovetail Drive suite 18 is White’s commercial kitchen and part of the StorageShopUSA warehouses just off County Highway CV near the airport. The west site is the Jordandal Cookhouse at 600 W. Verona Avenue in Verona, although after Christmas that will move to n + 1 Coffee and Beer at 507 Bruce St. in Verona. And new this coming Saturday is pickup from Lakeside Coffeehouse at 402 W. Lakeside St. in Madison.
Though many farmers’ markets recovered over the course of the summer and fall, with smaller neighborhood markets able to more safely handle shoppers (“downsizing is working right now,” she observes), White notes that many vendors are still scrambling, and options that will be available all winter will be important to their survival. In addition to her own website and Madison Farmers Unite, White will be selling Honey Bee products through the Landmark Creamery site and travelling to Milwaukee for its Milwaukee Winter Farmers Market indoors at the greenhouse annex at the Mitchell Park Conservatory through the end of March: “We need to diversify,” says White.
