Every farm with a U-pick division has faced the dilemma of a big rain storm hitting just as fruit is ready to pick on a Saturday. That’s a lot of money wasting away in the field.
Krupp Farms’ owner Paul Krupp has arrived at a simple solution to this common problem: He simply extends his hours, either later on Saturday or open for a limited time on Sunday, and puts out the word via email and Facebook. It works so well, he’s learned to use only half his list if the size of the crop cannot support a large group.
Here are the details of how this works for Krupp Farms:
Maintain A Healthy Email List. Krupp Farms has around 5,000 emails, and a similar number of followers on Facebook.
“It is so easy to update Facebook with weather changes, longer picking times, adding Sunday, or evening picks, whatever is needed,” Krupp says.
Krupp built its email list primarily through its website. It uses MailChimp for its bulk mailings.
Keep In Touch With Employees Digitally. Last minute changes to the schedule means last minute changes with staff hours. Krupp, who largely employs teenagers, finds his staff is OK with changes so long as he alerts them as soon as the decision is made.
“We sometimes will email them to delay the start, add an evening pick, and so on,” he says.
Krupp Farm’s U-pick operating hours are typically Monday through Saturday, from 7 a.m. to around 2 p.m. The store hours for selling already-picked berries is 9 a.m. to 6 p.m., the same hours for Krupp’s ice cream shop.
Start And End The Season Based On Crops, Not The Calendar. A perennial challenge for U-pick operators is that crops ripen when the weather allows them to, not just from a set number of days or weeks from planting. That can make scheduling ads tricky.
Again, Krupp Farms has found email and social media to be the answer.
Paul and Nancy Krupp
“How easy it is with Facebook and emails to start and stop the season, versus trying to get an ad in the Grand Rapids Press,” he says. “And when we start the season, we can have a soft opening, such as just putting up the signs, email half our list, then adding Facebook, etc.”
Supplement Social Media And Email With Traditional Advertising Efforts. As effective as Krupp finds Facebook and email to be, he uses those formats for their flexibility. He still advertises in the traditional sense to help build overall traffic.
Krupp buys ads in the Grand Rapids Press, the nearest city to his farm, as well in his local, small-town papers. Michigan has a healthy farm market industry, and so he finds value in advertising in the Fruit Ridge Market Guide and the Michigan Agriculture brochures.
“Other avenues to create traffic are various groups we’re attached to like Lions Club, North Kent Community Center, our church, our own travel agency (Antor Travel), any one with an extensive following to quickly alert potential customers,” he says.
Train Customers To Be Aware Of How Random Nature Can Be. Although Krupp Farms is normally open for U-pick throughout their season, the crops do not always cooperate. So Krupp makes an effort to teach customers to expect the randomness that comes with nature.
“We ask customers to call before coming in the afternoon in case we run out of picking for what we have for that day, or if it gets too hot,” he says. “And we normally schedule a couple evening picks, which usually we will just stay open all day.”