- As you may have noticed as you joined,
you were muted to cut down on background noise,
but at any time if you have questions
or technical difficulties type into the chat box.
If you're not so familiar with Zoom
wiggle your mouse around,
and you should see a chat box that you can click on.
So type into the chat box at any time.
If you're calling in from the phone
and you wanna join the conversation,
and it's a time for people to chime in
you can press star six to unmute or mute yourself.
And if you wanna chime in by raising your hand
you can do the old fashioned thing of raising your hand
or waving or whatever
and we'll be looking out for you.
Or there is a raise hand button in the reactions section,
or sometimes in the participant box.
This conversation will be recorded
and there is closed captioning available.
There's a link in the chat and here on the screen
for you to access the closed captioning.
The recording will be posted on our website
as along with information about future sessions
and how to sign up for an on-farm consultation.
Shall we move to the next slide?
So we're talking about getting ready
for pick your own today.
My name is Lisa Chase.
I'm with the University of Vermont Extension
and the Vermont Tourism Research Center.
And with us today, we have Claudia Schmidt
from Penn State Extension,
and Deb Colitas from Valley Fruits and Veggies
and Digital Networks Superstar
in the Lehigh Valley of Pennsylvania.
Before they introduce themselves
and before we launch into our topic
I'm gonna set up a poll.
Do you see that poll on your screens?
Give me a thumbs up, okay.
It looks like a lot of you already know what to do,
I can see the numbers coming in already.
For those of you who are new to polls
check as many boxes as hats that you wear
and we know that many of you wear many hats.
We left off you know; mom's chauffer you know,
bathroom cleaner and some of the other hot hats
that many of us wear, but
feel free to click the boxes.
And then, if we were all together in a room
we'd maybe do a quick round-robin of who's here with us.
We're not, we're still doing this virtually.
So take a moment to type into chat
if you're willing to share who you are.
Type into chat who you are, where you're from,
and any questions or thoughts or things you wanna share.
And, of course, if you typed in other,
feel free to put that into chat.
But even if you didn't type in other
by all means share and let us know who you are
and what you're thinking.
The results should be showing now.
So it looks like where about 60% farmers growers,
20% extension service providers,
and then we've got a bunch of non-profit, government agency,
educators, researchers, and others.
Well, thank you so much for joining us today.
And right now what I'm gonna do is
turn it over to Claudia first
and then Deb to share some things on their mind,
and then we'll open it up to everyone.
- Great, thanks Lisa.
So before I start, I just wanted to mention
for everyone here who is from Pennsylvania,
there were just news that showed up about an hour ago,
or now two hours.
So our administration is lifting the mitigation orders.
So there were capacity restrictions on bars,
restaurants, and other businesses,
and indoor and outdoor event gathering limits.
It will go away on May 31st,
but the current order requiring Pennsylvanians
to wear a mask is still on.
So everyone still has to do that outside as well
and then that will be lifted when 70% of Pennsylvanians
age 18 and older are fully vaccinated.
Very interested to see when this is going to happen.
So as Lisa mentioned, I'm from Penn State Extension.
We also have a agritourism website
with a lot of other resources that Christie will probably
post in the chat as well if you wanna check this one out.
I am so happy that Deb could join us today.
We interviewed Deb for an article on agritourism
and COVID in Pennsylvania last year.
You can also check that out on our website
and I'm really looking forward to learn more
about what's happening this year.
That's why we invited Deb to share her experience.
And I hope that all of you will also share your experience
and ask us any questions you might have.
So without any further ado, Deb please go ahead
and tell us about your business and how you're handling
all the COVID precautions this year, thanks.
- Absolutely, no, thank you very, very much.
So I'm gonna go ahead and share my screen really quickly
so everyone can see what we've got going on on our property.
So we are Valley Fruits and Veggies.
My name is Deb Colitus.
My husband, Chris and I, we have been active in agriculture
for our 20 years as marriage.
Ironically, I came from a nautical family in New Jersey,
and so I don't know how I became so landlocked
but it's a blessing
and very excited to be a part of it.
So we started with our 10 acre property,
we were blessed to be able to expand it 25 acres.
So not only in the spring time do we do
the picking on strawberries,
but now in the fall we have corn maze, and pumpkins,
and other things going on.
So last year the adventure of it all.
We had no idea on what we were heading into.
You know, talk about blind,
leading the blind of what was happening and what we did,
which is the same thing we did last year
is we went on Facebook and we just started
following farms from Florida all the way up to Maine,
as much as we possibly could to kinda catch the vibe
of what was happening prior to us here in Pennsylvania.
And let me tell you, if you have not done that
in any kind of way, just to kind of see whether it's South
to North or West to East, I so highly recommend it.
Because it is amazing what you learn and see
of what's different, the ideas that you get,
the comradery that you can have,
and just supporting other farmers or the shout out.
They ended up following us as well as they realized,
wait a minute we've got some, Pennsylvanians follow us
in North Carolina, what's going on?
And what we found last year is that
we were absolutely phenomenally, wonderfully
overwhelmed by the response.
People wanted to be outside, they wanted to be
in a situation that they were familiar with.
As you can see at the top of our website,
we immediately made sure
that we were communicating first with our customer base.
And if you do not have the investment made
in Facebook, in a website, an email list,
I strongly suggest that you get with an expert
if you do not feel that you are that expert
then start figuring out,
because once you can control your audience
and I don't mean mind control, cause wouldn't that be great?
Once you can control in a way
where you are getting the message out first,
it is amazing what can happen.
So like up here and we're gonna be updating this
because obviously things are changing
on a moment to moment basis on all of our states
of what are COVID and what's going on.
The other thing that we did, and here's a tip for you,
is immediately, we invest in a photographer every year
and that does amazing things,
because you're not just telling people a message
you're showing them.
Because, for example, here you can see a wonderful family,
they're out there
but then as you're scrolling,
you know, what's going on
and wherever can I find it here on the first page?
Nope, we moved it.
Let's go over to spring strawberries.
You can see this family has their masks
and they took them down for the photo,
but that tells a story in and of itself
that we took the policy
and procedure last year that we were not going to be
in a mask enforcement situation.
Rather we were going to be
in an empowerment to make the right decision community.
So while we had the signs up encouraging social distancing,
we definitely around the register area,
you know, had the marks on the floor
and our employees were always masked.
We made sure that the individuals were able to take control.
So we had families that whether they decided,
wow, we're outside we feel safe
or they did not feel that masks were appropriate.
There was enough space that everyone
around them could adjust themselves
and they could then be respectful as well.
And, you know, of an entire season last year,
we had one complaint from a gentlemen
but all it took was a conversation of, hey, look around you.
If you can't social distance in 35 acres
I don't know, you know, what to say at the moment.
And we had some people asking ahead of time on Facebook,
what are your policies?
What are these?
And we were just very honest
in that we came forth saying we want everyone
to have the best experience possible.
And for that to happen that means that, you know,
we're gonna provide every single safety measure we can,
but then ultimately it is your choice
on whether those safety measures match your comfort level.
And, you know, as a, you know farm of what we have going on
and, you know, well,
you can get very much caught up into the idea
that you wanna make everyone happy at all times, right?
Because the questions
and the requests can sometimes get a little insane.
Whether it's the mom asking
if I have extra baby wipes for her
to wipe her kid's hands off.
I'm like, no, sorry.
There's you know, that,
or is a port-a-potty really the only option here?
Yeah, no, porta-potty's really the only option.
We took COVID as the same type of opportunity
to just be honest with our customers of what was going on.
And it was an interesting education process.
You know, we did quite a bit of research
because we have a play area for the kids,
especially in the fall time.
Bins of corn they're playing in.
You know, slides that they can go down
off of some hay bales.
And what does that mean?
Lots of little fingers and hands touching things.
But as you know, we dug into the research
that was coming out thankfully at that time last year.
COVID has a very quick half-life under sunshine.
So pretty much the equivalent of sunshine outside
was every 15 minutes
like us going around with Lysol spraying everything.
And so when we, you know, we had the hand sanitizers,
we had the hand washing stations,
but we were also very, you know, upfront with parents
or people who seem nervous saying, well,
hey, you may not wanna play this year.
And that's an okay, however, this is what we know about,
you know, UV light and sunshine and everything like that.
So, and in the end, you know, the Facebook responses
and the reviews really wonderfully also complimented
what we went on.
Because the flip side of it is you have
to train your staff.
Because if your staff doesn't know
what you are doing out there
and putting out the word to people coming in
and we definitely invested in extra welcomers.
And that's something
that we're gonna continue this year as well.
So that as people are coming out of the parking lot
we have someone right there, kind of like, you know,
the Lucy information booth from the Peanuts
willing to give anybody and everybody, you know,
whatever information they need to have a successful time
on the farm with us at that moment of time.
Because we found
if we can answer those questions immediately
you mitigate the wandering individual
that's like searching for the person to, you know, ask.
And then they asked the wrong person
and then they're sent about with stuff.
Real quickly, and then I can't wait to get in discussions
and take questions, is we have a food trailer onsite.
We serve milkshakes.
We have awesome strawberry shortcake,
which means we had department of agriculture come in
for all of our inspections,
the dairy inspections, the well inspections.
And we made sure that all the inspections we pass
were plastered all over the place like wallpaper.
Because again, it's an reinforcement
that we're doing our job,
which is stuff you do in a matter COVID or not,
but people don't realize it,
that if you're going into a restaurant
and they don't have the displayed on the wall
that they're ServSafe certified
and they're approved, you got some issues.
So we just made sure above and beyond
that we had everything out.
So again, when people had questions
or we saw a little bit of nervousness
we were able to supply that.
But in the end, you know,
my background is actually education, well, small business,
and then I was an educator prior to having kiddos
and being involved in our business.
And I have a real heart for, you know,
the kids that come out to our properties.
Because we know the world that they live in is not
the agricultural world that we love
and have so much passion about.
So when I see a family exploring or the kids eating
the berries from the field and they're just covered,
we love that.
Because that means they're creating instant memories
that's gonna bring them back again and again,
you know, year after year.
And so, you know, as part of this experience
we wanted to make sure
that the families could feel comfortable
and that this was not a memory that was gonna have
to be skipped.
Because can you imagine kids had to skip Santa Claus?
So let's not skip the strawberries.
Let's not skip other things.
Let's make sure that we have what is needed
and just be very visible
in our practices of what's going on.
So lastly, you know, comparing last year to this year,
you know, minute by minute, who knows, you know,
what the government and our leadership is going to provide.
What we seek to do is be an example of the transition
because already here in Pennsylvania
they said unless you're in a crowd
you do not need to wear your mask outside.
So we are going to be starting right off the bat
letting our employees know that, hey,
if you're not in a crowded space that is up to you
and your comfort level and we will support that.
And that's what we're gonna be putting out there as well to,
you know, our following saying, hey,
Valley Fruits and Veggies, you've been with us.
We have the reputation.
You know how we handle things.
We welcome you out within your comfort level.
And then we'll adjust because you know what, if we get,
you know, some backlash on that, that people want masks,
maybe we'll have Monday, Tuesday, Wednesdays mask days.
Thursday, Fridays are not, I don't know.
It's how do you go along with the comfort level
to be encouraging people when we're outside there has been
and please anyone here speak up,
in this entire adventure of COVID
there has not been one outdoor event
that has ever been publicized
that has been a spreader event.
So we feel because of that history and what we have
that we can confidently go forward
and make these decisions ourselves with a positive nature.
So it's a pleasure to be here.
So Lisa and Claudia, anything else that I'm not covering
that you had in mind that, you know,
we've been speaking of at all?
- We haven't gotten any questions in the chat.
And I just wanna invite everyone that is on
if you would like to talk,
just go to the reactions button
on the lower level of your screen,
you now know how those things are going
and just raise your hand.
And then you check and just come up and ask your question.
If you have other questions
you can also enter them in the chat box.
So you're more than welcome to do that.
One of the things I really liked
what Deb just talked about is that
you have the safety measures in place
that match your comfort level, right?
And as you know, when you register it for this webinar
you were invited to ask some questions.
So I'm just gonna pull up
some of the questions that were asked.
And as I just mentioned, and as Deb mentioned,
everything is changing at a rapid pace in Pennsylvania
and probably in Vermont, too.
We have a lot of producers today from Vermont
and New Jersey and Pennsylvania.
So one person was asking what precautions
can be required of pick your own customers, right?
So whatever you're comfortable with,
but we actually consulted
with our staff attorney from Penn State Law.
And he said, as a matter of law
anything can be required of customers
since you're inviting them on your private property.
There are a lot of questions you could ask your customers.
And again, it really goes down to your comfort level, right?
There are a lot of questions you can ask your customers
that would not be an ADA violation.
So what I wanted to know from you now,
because we have a lot of people from different states,
what is your experience?
So Debbie shared her experience.
What do you think is, or what is yours?
- So we're launching another poll
to see what you're planning.
Do you see the poll?
Okay.
What safety practices are you considering using this season?
Check all that apply.
And while where, you know, while you're doing that
I do wanna mention that
different states have very different regulations.
And I think while all of them are loosening up,
they're loosening up at different rates.
And, you know, even beyond what your state regulations are,
your town may also have regulations
and of course it's private property so, you know,
you can choose your own regulations.
But we're curious to see
what different folks are thinking about.
So take just another moment to fill out this poll
and then we'll share the results with you.
And also, you know, as Claudia mentioned
feel free to type into chat or wave your hand
and, you know, we'll start also pulling out more questions
from the registration list.
I'm gonna end the polling now and share the results.
So it looks like hand washing
and hand sanitizing stations are big
and that's something that I'm glad that came up,
because we had a handful of farms in Vermont
that already had hand washing stations in place.
Cedar Circle Farm comes to mind, but it was the exception.
It was the unusual farm that had a hand washing station
or hand sanitizing station and signage
and, you know, a whole lot of emphasis on do this
before you go to the pick your old fields.
COVID has totally changed that.
I mean, before it was a best practice,
now it's a required practice moving forward,
you know, required in terms of not really required
but it should be done.
And I think moving forward it's not,
even when COVID is you know,
hopefully we're all looking forward
to COVID being a memory.
You know, way back when remember those crazy days
when we were all wearing masks.
We're still gonna be washing our hands
before we pick our berries
and you know, every time we're about to touch food.
So that's great to see.
(indistinct)
- I'm sorry to interrupt, but that's crazy to me
to think that the farms were not having that practice.
- You've had a hand washing stations
and signage for a while now.
- Yeah, that.
Well, and again, you know, shout out to Penn state
and you know, all the education
and things like that, that go along with it,
plus we do have restaurant experience as well,
so that kind of is a crossover with it.
But always, you know, especially making sure
that there's a rhythm and a placement of things
to encourage that behavior of what's going on.
So that's fascinating that that's something,
but that's a good thing.
Like I said to a friend today,
I said if only we could all keep washing our hands
and Target would keep their bathroom clean,
we'd be all healthier.
So it's how do we keep those good practices going?
So, no, thanks for sharing that.
- Yeah, no, that's yeah.
I mean, certainly there were farms in Vermont doing it,
I would say the ones that paid attention.
I mean, there were a number that paid attention,
especially those that might've had a petting area
or a eating area so you're moving from one place to another.
You know, some of the operations
that were just much more focused on
you come and you pick weren't really set up.
I mean, hand washing stations with running water
sometimes just isn't really practical in the field
that hand sanitizer stations.
You know, people could be doing that
but you gotta keep refilling
and it just always wasn't happening.
And I think we're gonna see it happening a lot more now.
- Something interesting that happened to us
during the fall season
is because of the increase of hand needs.
if you have not ordered your hand washing stations yet
from whatever portal that, you know,
type company you do,
do that now hopefully in a week.
The clean supply chain issues and everything else like that,
what showed up for us in the fall
was a giant barrel that they had put
like this drip faucet on
and a makeshift catch basin because that, you know
they've run out of hand washing stations.
So definitely with special needs, you know,
make your assessment clear.
And then we actually had to call them back to make sure
that we have the appropriate ADA hand-washing station
to go with the ADA, you know,
potty that we had along the way.
So don't hesitate to ask us extra questions
when you're getting those quotes on those important things
because it can get crazy.
- Yeah.
And I'm gonna say these days, hand washing stations
you know, having a foot pedal is really important,
you don't.
And there are some low cost do it yourself options
for hand washing stations.
And we actually have some links for that on the website
as well as some support for the farms.
Not just in Vermont,
but all around the Northeast who are interested
in having portable do it yourself hand washing stations
with foot levers.
If that's something you're interested in
and would like some help with, reach out to us
because that's something we can help with.
I wanna just see there's some stuff coming up in chat
but I'm just gonna mention.
It's good to also see social distancing between pods,
advanced registrations, masks,
and no eating while picking,
as well as assigned spots or rows for pods
are all different options
that different people are considering.
So, and there's some other and in chat.
So why don't I, you know, turn it over
to Claudia or others
- Okay - The chat.
- So chat comments are coming in.
If you don't wanna, you're more than welcome
to talk as well.
As I mentioned again, it's a zoom cafe.
If you don't want to now you have to listen to me
with my German accent reading your questions
and your answers.
So Pamela Salisbury is saying, Massachusetts here,
we had a wonderful reception from our customers.
Our you pick sunflowers
and hayrides increased by at least 50%.
That's amazing, thanks for sharing.
Our last day of hayrides was December 24th.
We had to send sanitizer at our stand and on the right.
We had one person complained as well,
but one person out of over 1,000 is really not bad.
I agree.
Whether evasions for huge and big capital letters
and we will adopt utilizing reservations again.
Now talking about reservations,
there was a question coming in.
Olivia from Andover Acres is asking,
what software online rev reservations
and payment tools do you recommend?
We would like to require appointments
to manage visitation numbers
and maybe also have folks pay some in advance
to reserve their spot.
First, maybe Deb.
Would you like to answer this question?
- So my other life is
I have a communication marketing company.
So I have a full-time web designer.
Do all of those sorts of things.
So happy to take this
and if I can ever help anybody with that, please,
you know, reach out to me through
the Valley Fruits and Veggies website and glad to connect.
But the best thing to do is one,
reach out to your current web designer
because usually web designers have a favorite tool
that they like to do as a plugin.
A plugin is kind of, you know, just a free connection
to another program to make things work.
Usually, when there is money being exchanged
you are gonna have a percentage fee
or a subscription that you're gonna need to pay for,
but let me tell you the office work that it saves
is amazing.
So we did not do reservations for picking per se,
we do reservations for birthday parties and other things.
So we use a combination of a Calendly,
it's called, it's a booking.
So you can, you know, list things out.
Ticket Tailor is a another fantastic program that we used
for our corn maze night reservations,
and then Eventbrite, and usage of PayPal.
So between those four tools, we put everything together
the way that we wanted to make it happen
and it worked really well.
Specifically Ticket Tailor, oh my gosh.
You download an app on your phone, so as people arrive
you scan, you know, their tickets off of their phones
or if they printed it,
so you have an exact record of who they are.
You can collect all the information
that you need to off of them.
When comparing percentages, I always compare, you know,
of what they're taking off the top of things.
I always compare it to how many people
would I have to hire to answer the phone
and do this manually.
So I don't mind giving that three to 7% depending
upon what's being required, because it makes it so easy
and it updates on the website magically.
So again, Ticket Tailor, Calendly, Eventbrite,
and then PayPal has worked very nice agnostically.
We are getting more requests asking
if we'll take Venmo and stuff like that.
It just depends upon your bank,
and if your bank is friendly with those sorts of things.
So before you sign up for like all the Epay stuff,
check with your bank of what they deal with
because not all banks are as high-tech
as we would like them to be.
- That was great, thank you.
- [Deb] You're welcome.
- And there are more comments coming in.
I've seen a part of a farm appointment system
on signupgenius.com.
Kathleen is saying, "We haven't felt a need to go
so high tech and enjoy the more personal feel of speaking
with folks, we have phone and Facebook or email."
So that's still working, you know,
going we Facebook and email,
still enables social distancing.
And I know Brian, did you have a comment
and maybe you should just quickly introduce yourself,
because Brian is with Penn State Extension.
- I was just typing it in the chat what I was gonna say,
that's all right.
Yeah, I'm with Penn State Extension working in the,
we're working a lot with farmers markets
and on-farm markets.
And some of the conversations we've been having is
the fact that say, even though,
if everything ends and everything opens up,
that we've had over a year of building a culture,
of these procedures,
like what Deb was talking about,
that your customers to a certain extent might expect
that that stays in place
because we've built that culture now.
And it's all about, it's like the TSA at the airport, right?
It's the theater of safety.
You can have discussions about
what's effective and what isn't,
but when you have a customer's expectations
that they expect to see that
and feel a certain amount of nervousness,
if they don't see it, they come to your business.
So just something to think about.
- Brian, I think you're spot on because it's,
we obviously as business owners need
to have our best practices for what we know is safe
and you know what we need to do
to make our operations profitable
because let's be honest, we've got to, you know
make a profit, but we do have to respond
to a user experience that allows
that experience to be successful.
What we've tried to do is just emphasize the human
you know, behind it.
I had shared with Liz and Claudia yesterday,
the most moving thank you note I got last year
was from a mom of an autistic boy that we were
the first place that she was able to bring him at that time
because of mask policies,
where he could not need the mask
because obviously with, you know, he has a disability.
He had, you know, a specific need at that time
and we were able to adjust.
And, you know, vice versa,
those that are immunocompromised.
How do you serve them?
And what was going on?
You know, we had been prepared this year
that if it was still pandemic, you know, maximum
to head into delivery.
You know, special hours, you know, all of those things.
It doesn't look like we'll need it.
Real quick to compliment Kathleen Douglas, who says
you know, avoiding high-tech.
I applaud that.
It all depends upon your ratio obviously,
of how many people you're dealing with.
But if you're in person is not 10 times better
than your tech, then you're missing an opportunity
because I think that goes back to what, you know,
Brian was saying, it's a trust relationship that you have,
especially in farming
because you're inviting people on your property.
They become part of things.
They are excited to see the story
of what's unfolding and how it's unfolding.
So it's exciting to be a part of it.
- Great, thanks.
Vera.
- Hi Debbie. I have a question about your welcomers
that you mentioned at the beginning
and just sort of what the main points that they touched
on as they were welcoming people into the farm.
And how much of that was general
and how much of is specific to your safety points.
- No, great question.
So our welcomers are usually, and I can say this openly
because I'm related to them, set of seniors.
My mom, my father-in-law, my mother-in-law
or a set of fantastic teenagers.
We have two teenagers turned employees,
so that could be a whole other like extension thing.
Like how to turn your teenagers and employees.
But what essentially we do is the first question.
Well, always it's welcome to Valley Fruits and Veggies.
Then it's have you visit us here before,?
Because by getting that there
they are not automatically receiving like
the edict of, you know, 50 pieces of information
because if they walk in with confidence of,
yeah, we've been here before, you know, stuff like that,
we just go right into, do you have any questions?
And that kinda, you know, keeps it going.
Also as a business, we then know what percentage
of people are return customers versus new.
So as soon as they say,
oh, we haven't been here before.
We like, hone in on like the smiles of Disneyland
and that is, Ah, we're so thankful that you're here.
So we acknowledge that.
We just kind of give the lay
of the land and then we always back up with
do you have any questions?
So it's not so much about us trying to say again,
hey, these are the 15, you know
here's the PowerPoint presentation
and please remember to do this.
But rather, you know what do you need?
Because usually they found us, you know,
because they've seen something
or somebody mentioned it to them,
or they saw an ad, or a Facebook.
So they have some sort of mindset.
And just by us showing that comfort level of a relationship
and then after the point where we say,
do you have any questions?
It's always, let us know if you need anything.
They say we're wearing this shirt, you know,
I'm Debbie and, you know, off they go.
And what we also do with our greeters is
we rotate them quite frequently.
I would say once every hour or so to different jobs
because then all of a sudden,
they're seeing the same people they just greeted
and are now going, "Oh, how's it going?"
"Oh, have a great day".
And it's the same thing with the exit on the farm.
It's not just, you know, bye.
It's, how was your visit?
Do you have any ideas or suggestions?
Because you know, the only negative review
we got last year was a gentleman who came onsite
and then gave us one star,
Cause he said we needed to plant more berries
because we had run out that day.
So, you know, like the comment.
If you only have one out of 1,000,
I'll take that all day.
I didn't even respond to it on Google,
I'm like, I'm just gonna leave it there.
Because you know, when you're able to, you know
let people know that you're open to that feedback,
it just saves so much hassle.
So hopefully, that was helpful Vera.
Awesome.
- Thank you.
There's a new comment coming in from Erin.
Last year for COVID precautions
we only provided new containers.
That's another question that came up a lot,
the containers.
For each customer at each visit instead of allowing them
do we use pass berry containers or apple bags.
That's something I've seen in VA as well.
This was done in conjunction was last year's guidelines
from New England extension.
This system worked well for us,
but did come with a lot of complaints
from customers who prefer to use old containers.
Do you expect the POI guidelines this year
to still recommend single use containers?
Thank you.
- I love this question
because who knew we could have like hours debates
over containers as we're standing there with like,
the family that comes with the 20 Tupperwares
and like, this disgusting looking thing, but anyways.
So how we handle that is
if it was a container that had been ours from years past
so we didn't have to do a tare weight ahead of time.
They could go ahead and use it.
If it was a home container all we said to them is,
hey look, you know, distribute the Tupperwares
to all of your family members
and have them dump it into one of ours
because then we know that way and our, you know
we're then not having to touch things along the way.
We haven't made any firm decision
on what we're doing this year again with that.
You know, as Brian was saying
before they expect certain things,
but at the same time this is a moment as a farm.
Because while you can charge for the box
and earn a little bit of money
and it kinda simplifies things at the register
when you're not having these 80 containers of things.
So that that's more of a business logistical,
you know, thing that we're gonna be doing.
But yeah, no containers.
It's like the grocery bags.
I bring my, you know, nice recyclable grocery bags
to Wegmans and sometimes they'll bag it for me
and sometimes they won't depending upon the person.
So, we're all adjusting to that one still.
So yeah, good question, good question.
- Good question.
So in the sign-off we also got a couple of questions
regarding snacking in the field and masking.
And I know that's gonna be different
you know, in each state.
So did you allow us snacking
and how does it work with the eating
and the masks and the snacking?
What's your view on that?
- We are a free for all on that one.
And we know we're not like a lot of farmers and we love it.
We encourage the snacking.
We say, look, if you think that you can make a dent
in our five acres of strawberries, go for it.
Because quite frankly, those people who, you know,
there's a difference between
in the field and snacking and picking,
and paying, and leaving.
There are those that I'm sure you've had
where all of a sudden you see their box and bin go to a side
and then they're snacking before paying.
We redirect them, you know, hey, you know, time to pay.
Honestly from a safety perspective
because we have the hand washing stations
and the hand sanitizer of it all,
it's usually only the kids that end up sticky
and they're not the ones paying along the way.
So we were just, you know, very supportive
and cautious of, hey, if you're a mess
why you go clean yourself
before coming up to the register?
But it didn't need to be a sign,
it didn't need to be anything else.
We find quite opposite, usually,
they're the parents that are like, don't eat them,
You know, you're stealing.
And so we've had to educate the opposite to say,
no, that's fine.
And that goes back to really our love of, you know, kiddos.
The tactile learning that happens
from that moment of digging, you know,
touching dirt, a plant, stickiness, you know, eating it.
I don't see kids licking our plants usually,
so we haven't seen those kinds of things,
thankfully.
I'm more worried about the mom who is trying
to change a diaper in the middle of the field.
Like, you know, those are the incidents
that are definitely more on a danger zone
or those moments where a service dog comes up on site.
Like that is a huge issue
because you cannot deny them service,
But then now that there has been a dog
in the field in a certain place
you can't have people pick there.
So we are very conscious about those moments
that I think caused a lot more impact.
So, no, I know there's a lot of different feelings
on that one out there,
but that is what we have gone with
and it is something that we are now known for.
Because there are other farms
where if their child has had
the experience of being scolded by an employee somewhere,
don't eat it and then coming to ours,
you know, it's a positive in our way.
But definitely, you know.
But no, I hear you Kathleen,
it be realistic to have a tiny children not bite an apple
Apples are a different commodity.
So strawberries are very different
than an apple with things.
- Thanks.
There was another comment coming in that Kathleen said,
that they moved away from weighing fruit
to providing pin quatre containers with a set price.
And what have you been doing, Deb?
- That is something we've been tracking.
So my sister and brother-in-law are down in Texas
and we were visiting with them in early on a March.
And so we were upset because we were just like
two weeks away from their strawberries being ready.
They were getting $7 a pound for strawberries
and selling out within the morning every day.
We're like, oh we gotta go down to Texas.
So if anybody wants to do a co-op in Texas,
we're already for it.
And so, but they were also selling them by the bucket,
which was interesting.
You could do $15 for the bucket or $7 a pound,
depending upon how, you know, it reached out.
And I think if you bought the bucket
you ended up saving like $1.50 or something like that.
But somebody who didn't wanna fill the bucket,
you know, that's where it was at.
So we've been considering that
to see, you know, what it may be.
It won't be this year,
but next year we may do a test comparison of,
okay the standard box versus,
cause the buckets are really nice.
You can brand them.
People are more likely to keep them, you know,
year to year and bring them back.
You know they can be dishwasher safe,
so people can sanitize them.
So I think it's a pretty neat trend that is out there.
It's how do you
keep the family, that's just out for an adventure happy,
while you get the jammer
who's going for 75 pounds, you know, happy as well?
So that's the two drastic different
berry pickers that are out there.
What we do is we served strawberry milkshakes
so we just keep them all happy at the same time.
Distract them with food.
- Yeah.
And check out that article
that's on our website from last year.
Lots of good ideas.
What are the safe activities you can do.
Someone questions on the companion pets,
I know it's a food safety issue, right?
But I think we maybe should elaborate on this one more.
And Scott is saying like,
what are the opinions on allowing companion pets?
And Kathleen is saying it's hard
because you know, they might support one person
but they might trigger another person
beside the food safety aspect.
Do you have anything more?
Or anyone else please feel free to chime in as well.
- So as for companion pets
it's an absolute zero in the strawberry field.
Service animals, very different.
And when someone comes on with a service animal
we immediately develop a relationship with them.
We thank them for coming.
We give them our personal card
and say, "Hey, next time you wanna come we want you here,
but can you give us a heads up
and we will prepare the area for you?"
Cause they end up being appreciative too,
because usually they don't wanna walk too far
or you know anything else of goes along with it.
Because what we'll often do is offer a replacement of
the service animal with one of our employees,
if that is appropriate for them.
If not, then, you know, we support
what their comfort is needed.
Now, in the fall we're pumpkins and a corn maize,
so that is not an eating type response.
We just make sure that when people say,
oh yeah, can we bring it in the fall?
We just say, we love you in the fall,
in the spring though, you know
the pooch will have to be left at home.
And people are understanding of it,
we've never had an issue per se.
We've had more issues with motorcycle people
looking to park on the non gravel
and being upset that they have to park on the gravel.
So it's amazing.
What would people are kinda need to feel a dig at?
But you grow with it, you go with it.
- Yeah, because actually by law, you know,
people who have service animals generally have a card
that says, this is an official service animal
and you cannot not let them in any place, it's under ADA.
But the folks that come up and say cause I've run into this,
particularly with public markets, large public markets
and people wanna bring their dogs
and they have indoor buildings,
and they struggle to keep people with their comfort
or companion pets out,
but they do not have to let them in.
- We would like to, you know, more tell the deer
and the fox to stay out of it, but that's
enough
(laughter drowns out other sounds)
and the birds and everything else.
So yeah, no, we did have a cat in a backpack once.
So that was a fun conversation
of complimenting the backpack.
It's like, sorry.
- These are really good points.
Pamela is saying that they offer buckets
or was it a posit for their sunflowers?
I wonder if it's like a fancy or a branded bucket?
If the visitors do not want the bucket
they get this $3 back upon return,
most people pay for the bucket.
So Pamela, is it a fancy bucket, I'm wandering?
Branded with their name.
Okay, so it's also a little bit of a momentum as well.
So we're going in the last quarter of the hour.
If you have any questions now is your chance
to ask Deb.
If you need some more time,
I have another question
I prepared from before that you entered in the form.
So one question was, how would you minimize damage
to my crop from pick your own customers?
So that's not really a COVID related question,
but I did get in touch with Kathy Demchak,
who was working with berries at Penn State Extension.
And she just mentioned that,
you know, practices differ
and here are some of the things that she observed.
So you can hand out color-coded flags
and assign a single row that visitors can pick
or you have like different colors, flags,
and the visitors can then
mark where they stopped picking the row
and then someone else can take over.
or you just tell a certain section of a role
instead of by the pounds.
So these are all different options.
Or, you know, just let people go wherever where they want,
which you can do when you have five acres of strawberry
and you just charge a high enough price to go with it.
- So I have something that we did last year due
to COVID that we're gonna keep as a policy.
Is we said, you know, children must stay
with their parents at all times.
You know, and that was, it's great with the COVID umbrella,
you know, over top of that.
Quality parenting 101,
but that's okay.
You know, that was definitely something that we will add
to our, you know, requests of the farm
post COVID and beyond.
Just you know, for safety reasons,
you know, please keep your kiddos with you.
Cause you know most damage is done by an accident
with things along the way.
Because always the berry and the next row is better
and you know, bigger and redder and I just gotta get to it.
The other thing is, as farmers
if we can keep the weed control down
people will see the natural paths.
We've seen, you know, field struggle more.
I mean, we plant on plastic,
which makes a world of difference, oh my goodness.
And so, you know, there's a raised row
so people kinda you know,
follow the maize pattern of what the field is.
But yeah, if you've got overgrowth
that's gonna be a much harder,
because you don't see the berries and the plants
because of weed control,
but things like that happen.
So we all just, you know, deal with it and roll with it.
But yeah, encourage families just to stay together
and I think that also helps the trampling of plants.
- Really good points.
Annie is asking, she's wondering how everyone else went
about social distancing on their hayrides?
- Crossed our fingers and said, get on.
I mean, that's the reality.
You know, we our hayride,
hay wagons are designed
that there's the bench seats around the perimeter
but then you can do a row of straw bales in the middle.
We didn't do the straw bales in the middle.
So, you know, we had them going more frequently
and just, you know, kept up the pace.
We definitely had staff on hand to help
with the loading and unloading
to keep the momentum
and safety and everything going on that, you know.
We did not worry about wiping things down per se,
just with the sunlight out there
other than, you know spilled things
and people forgetting things and stuff like that.
But yeah, it's the hayrides.
We were reading the customer,
that is they were looking a little timid,
we would just say, oh you're welcome
to wait for the next ride.
And they're like, oh, well, you know, it was at six feet.
I said, well, wear your mask if you're most comfortable.
And I said, kinda spread yourself out,
put your arms out to take up some more space.
So it's I gotta do things,
but thankfully, there really weren't complaints from that.
It's open air and it's not like getting into a car,
but yeah, that's another challenging moment.
- Yeah.
And I'll just chime in to say, you know
every farm really needs to do what works best for them.
And you know, again
things are gonna vary state by state.
I think in Vermont, there were very few
if any hayrides last year.
I think most people of Vermont just didn't even go there,
but you know, other states handled things differently
and you know, we'll have a lot more
transitional opportunities this year
for, you know, farms to start doing new things.
And you know, we look to the South
to see last year when pick your own was about to start
we were looking to Pennsylvania
and you know, other states who were doing it first
to see what was happening in,
I think we'll be doing the same this year
to see what's going on with hayrides
and all sorts of different types of farm experiences.
- Hi Pamela, again.
So Pamela held private hayrides.
Their wagon holds 20 people max,
they held a minimum of four
and a maximum of 16 in one group.
And they sold out
partially, because there was the only farm offering them.
And their challenge this year
is going to be holding private rights and public rights.
Yeah, as things, you know, loosen up a little bit
there's gonna be a whole time of confusion, I suppose.
Scott was saying they had limited people on wagons
and only pickers on the wagons.
Anyone who's just a sightseer
they had to walk.
So any other questions?
Chadley did you see any other questions,
I missed any other questions in the registration?
- No, I think you got them all,
unless it was one more in the registration
that you wanted to cover.
- I haven't seen any that's COVID related.
All right, if there are no other questions
I'm just gonna give it back to Lisa
and I'm gonna share my screen again.
- Okay, and while you're sharing your screen
what I wanna say is that
this first agritourism cafe, Zoom cafe,
that was Claudia's brain child to try a Zoom cafe.
Well, this is the first in a series of online sessions.
We've got different people doing different things
and were shooting for a roughly one a week,
most likely on Tuesdays, although the time's gonna vary.
Next week on May 11th, we're looking at an evening session,
7:00 to 8:00 pm.
And we've got folks from Rutgers
talking about agritourism operation checklists
and self-assessment on your farm.
And then we've got a whole series of different topics
coming up that are listed on our website.
And we'll put the websites here on the slide
and we'll also put it in chat for you.
And one thing I wanna mention is, thanks
to the Northeast Extension Risk Management Education Center
we're not only able to offer
this online session of Zoom cafes, and trainings,
and different types of conversations.
We're also able to offer
on farm visits.
So depending on your comfort level,
you can have someone on our team come to your farm,
this is throughout the Northeast,
and do a walkthrough with you.
And this will be someone most likely
who's never been to your farm.
And so they will be walking through with fresh eyes,
with the eyes of a visitor, looking for hazards,
looking for safety issues
and things that you might wanna change or approve
to help with your safety for your farm and your family,
but especially for that interface with visitors.
If you're less comfortable
with having someone visit your farm
we'll also do a video consultation or, you know,
email or phone or whatever works for you.
And the person leading those safety visits is Chadley.
So Chadley, will you take a moment to introduce yourself
and let us know your plans for traveling around
the Northeast and visiting farms this season?
- Yeah, thank you, Lisa.
Lisa pretty much covered it.
There's funding in this project.
You know, one part of the project is these online webinars.
And the other part is me
and probably some others
visiting farms around the Northeast.
If you're interested at all, Christie put a link
in the chat for me,
which you can click on and do a quick sign-up form.
If you do that, I'll reach out to you very soon after,
probably within a day
and schedule a time.
I'm available at your convenience, if you're further.
I live in Vermont, in Southern Vermont,
but I'm able to visit any part of the Northeast.
If you're say in,
you know, Pennsylvania
I may need to schedule you maybe at a later date,
I probably couldn't go there next week
and we'll plan around it.
But know that I'm able and willing and excited
to visit all farms around the Northeast.
So just let me know.
Feel free to fill out that form.
And yeah, if you have any questions right now
feel free to let me know.
- And one thing that would all add actually is that
we are coordinating with our extension colleagues
and other service provider colleagues
throughout the Northeast.
So if you have an extension agent
that you're working with regularly and you wanna, you know,
Chadley and that person can visit,
or if you feel more comfortable, just that person.
And we also, in the past, I've often found it helpful
to do these visits with insurance agents.
For example, Stewart Farnham is here with us today.
And he's an insurance agent that I've often worked with
and I'll bring him along on a farm walkthrough,
sometimes an emergency responder.
You know, we've found that
the more kind of new eyes on your farm, you know,
whether it's an extension person or an insurance agent,
or even, you know, even a neighbor
or somebody who just hasn't really been there
and can take a fresh look at your farm,
the more helpful it is at discovering potential problems
that you may not really recognize.
Some of which may be really easy to address.
You know, a couple of the big things
we're gonna be paying attention to
that we think are hopefully very easy to address
are hand washing stations and signage.
And where, you know, through this project
I mentioned earlier, we've got some do it yourself
foot pedal type of washing stations
that we wanna help you get set up with
as well as the proper signage,
letting people know to wash their hands, you know,
when and how to wash their hands properly.
So we are ready to support you in that area.
If you're thinking, hmm,
I probably should be doing this stuff,
but I'm busy, when am I gonna have time?
How am I gonna make it happen?
You know, that's our job,
to help you make it happen on your farm.
Unless there's anything else we can just kinda wrap up
with a reminder for next week.
Claudia, Deb, any closing remarks?
- Just a huge, thank you for this opportunity.
You know, we are always so blessed and excited by
the resources that are out there for us.
So if anyone is on this Zoom cafe for like
the first time reaching out I am always amazed by, you know,
the extensions and the universities
that you really wanna help us.
You know, we come up with these crazy questions and needs
and bugs and issues and stuff like that.
And there's always someone there
that's so geeked out on what we need.
And that's just like the big agricultural hug
that we need in the depths of it all.
But, you know, just blessings and love for all
the fellow farmers out there.
Life's an adventure.
There's always gonna be a different COVID
or a different challenge, or, you know, something else.
You know, people's tension divert from one topic
to the other because that's the attention span
of individuals out there.
But just keep doing what you're doing
and do a great job and know
that you're never alone out there.
- Great, thanks Deb. - Thanks Deb
Yeah. - Thank you.
- Claudia, you wanna make any closing remarks?
- I just want to thank everyone for joining.
And to all the producers, I mean, good luck this season.
I hope that things are gonna go back to, you know,
the new normal.
I don't even wanna say that fairly, fairly soon.
And Pamela was just saying that she's interested in
the liability insurance for farms.
So check out these events.
Go to the Vermont website.
This is how they're registered.
We just gonna send out to our usual channels here
it's a Penn State Extension,
but all of these events are going through Vermont extension.
- Okay, thanks. - Yeah.
Yeah, and we'll within a day or two,
once we get this recording up,
we'll send out an email to everyone who's registered,
you know, reminding you we've got these sessions coming up
and you can sign up for an on-farm safety assessment.
And here's our website, here's where to go.
So keep the questions coming
and keep the conversation going.
And hopefully, we'll see you next week.
Stay safe, everyone.
- Thank you everyone
- With you.
- Bye.