During my research on my go-to-market strategy I read about quite a few strategies from farmers market, to selling to middle men who then sell to the end-user, direct selling e.t.c. I also read about the Pick Your Own (PYO) strategy. Basically this means that you open your farm up to the public to pick their own selection of fruits. Now in my neck of the woods, this strategy seems quite bizarre for reasons folks in my neck of the woods would understand :-). Nevertheless I was quite curious and when I got the chance I went to a farm that uses this strategy.
So myself and Tara went on down to Butler’s Orchard in a beautiful little town called Damascus (not in Israel) where they grow strawberries and blueberries.
So here is how it works…
When we approached the farm the lady on the right sells us a carton which comes in different sizes to store our strawberries while we pick them. If you look closely at the board you will see the price of the containers and the strawberries. You pay according to the weight of the strawberries.
So that’s Tara on the left eating the strawberries…haha and me on the right picking them :-). The thing is, folks at Butler’s Orchard don’t mind if you taste/eat a few strawberries. She actually asked and they said it was ok. Well isn’t that something……
That’s a cross-section of the farm which is all kinds of beautiful. The landscape is pretty amazing and if you look closely you see folks capturing the beauty of the farm. I hope mine is as pretty and huge as this one day… 🙂
The really cool thing about this strategy is that while I was out on the field I saw families and group of friends picking their strawberries…babies as well. It goes beyond just picking strawberries but more like a leisure activity. I also had a pretty awesome time picking my strawberries
The box at the top is mine, the one on the left is a not so pretty strawberry and the boxes on the left belongs a lady who will be heading down to the farmers market to sell her strawberries.
Tara and I showing off our strawberries…haha…We were there for over an hour…turns out time flies while picking strawberries…haha…
The next step is to take it to the store to get it weighed and pay.Thanks for stopping by 🙂
4 Comments
Green Grow
July 28, 2014The PYO is a great strategy for cutting cost on logistics and in situations of poor or no storage capabilities and unstable power supply.Waste is a major issue in agriculture, PYO has the capability of reducing waste as crops remain in the farm until hatvested.Glut situations are easily averted as farm is accessible to community.You can not remove the middle man, the small retailer is already playing that role. Once you pick to resell you become the link to the consumer.Feasibility of PYO for the African small holder may be a plausible considertion, perherps we try this method of reaching the consumer…while putting into consideration biosecurity.Way the go Kofo.
Green Grow
July 28, 2014The PYO is a great strategy for cutting cost on logistics and in situations of poor or no storage capabilities and unstable power supply.Waste is a major issue in agriculture, PYO has the capability of reducing waste as crops remain in the farm until hatvested.Glut situations are easily averted as farm is accessible to community.You can not remove the middle man, the small retailer is already playing that role. Once you pick to resell you become the link to the consumer.Feasibility of PYO for the African small holder may be a plausible considertion, perherps we try this method of reaching the consumer…while putting into consideration biosecurity.Way to go Kofo.
Kofo Durosinmi-Etti
August 4, 2014I always enjoy reading your comments. I had to think about this one for a lil while though. PYO can definitely help with the issue of storage and transportation for farmers, the challenge is that large enough farms are not in easily accessible areas.Bros you want pple to come to your farm anyhow and eat anyhow….you know how our people will just chop everything in the farm and commot. Begin dey talk say dem no wan buy anything….u catch my drift 🙂
agropreneur9ja
August 9, 2014Very interesting read for me. Kofo I think if customised for the Nigeria terrain it can work. Am looking at estates , organised communities and of course guidelines like how many tasting you can do. I think with proper monitoring it can work.