How Tega Hills Farm Reinvented Itself During Lockdown

Mark and Mindy Robinson are small farmers doing big things. On two acres, mostly under cover, in Fort Mill, SC, Tega Hills Farm grows a wide array of restaurant-friendly crops. Prior to the pandemic, it serviced between 50 and 60 restaurants in the area — the farm is on the state line, and Charlotte, NC, is a 20-minute drive away.

When the shutdown hit, its customer base dried up. Today, Tega Hills Farm’s list of restaurant customers is only half what it once was. They’re not alone. Research by the National Restaurant Association project that “by the end of 2020, the restaurant and foodservice industry will sustain $240 billion in losses.”

Thankfully, that wasn’t the full story. This greenhouse grower moved quickly to reshape itself and build a new customer base. It’s a remarkable story of a farm tapping its community ties and remaking itself after crops were already in production.

Choose Your Best Customer Options

Like vegetable growers across the country, the Robinsons found themselves with crops planted for a market that was temporarily gone.

“Direct-to-consumer sales used to be 10% of our revenue, now it’s a third to half,” Mindy says.

That 10% came from a regular spot at Matthews Community Farmer’s Market in Matthews, NC, about 30 minutes away. The Robinsons had developed stronger relationships with customers than they realized before the pandemic.

“We believe you are selling more than produce,” Mark says. “Customers like seeing your face each week, not just a farmer but a person.”

Those connections paid off as some of their customers actually helped them develop a CSA-like program in two higher-end communities. The Robinsons were able to make weekly deliveries to these two towns.

One couple, who had been long-time customers, helped the Robinsons develop a weekly produce delivery route in their higher-end community. This couple used their community’s private Facebook page to promote Tega Hills Farm’s produce delivery service and reminded neighbors to place their orders.

Other customers expressed a desire for a CSA program, which was something the Robinsons had not actively promoted in years past. So they responded, creating a solid program with expert help (more on that below). They now sell CSA shares for spring, summer, and fall, and plan to offer a Winter CSA program also.

Hire the Expertise You Need

Six months prior to the pandemic, Tega Hills Farm had only two online orders, Mindy says.

With its new consumer-facing business model, the operation needed its website to reflect its new priorities. The Robinsons turned to Barn2Door to help them retool TegaHillsFarms.com.

The investment was well worth the result, Mark says. They paid a reasonable upfront cost of a few hundred dollars, then a low monthly maintenance fee.

“Right now, before going into our farmers’ market on Saturday morning, a third of our produce is already sold. Our online sales have become a very good indicator of how our total sales are going to be at the farmers’ market each weekend,” Mindy says.

Lean into Available Resources

After the pandemic took hold, Tega Hills Farms wasn’t able to develop the new customers overnight. Going from supplying up to 60 restaurants to no restaurants to the reduced number they have now could have put them out of business. Several programs helped the Robinsons navigate those first weeks of the shutdown:

Catawba Farm and Food Coalition. The Robinsons serve on the board of this five-county 501(c)3 non-profit in their community.

“The Coalition already had a website which allows people to purchase online from multiple farmers and pick up at one central location. We had been trying to get people in this area of South Carolina to use this website for years, but with little success,” Mark says.

This year, though, sales through the site increased by 75%, he says. The community rallied around local growers and discovered they could to do so through the Coalition’s site.

Piedmont Culinary Guild (PCG). The Robinsons are long-time members of this local coalition of working chefs, farmers, food artisans, brewers, distillers, winemakers, food provisioners, culinary educators, and related full-time agricultural/culinary professionals in the Piedmont region of North Carolina and South Carolina. Members of PCG came together to share resources, knowledge, and ideas related to operating during the pandemic closings. The chefs continued to purchase as much as possible from local farmers. Piedmont Culinary Guild worked closely with Carolina Farm Stewardship Association to coordinate the FarmSHARE program.

Carolina Farm Stewardship Association. Before the pandemic, the organization was already known as a powerful lobbying group. But it moved into high gear when the pandemic threatened its members. It piloted a project to provide weekly boxes of locally produced food to out-of-work restaurant and hospitality employees. It was able to pay local farms through the FarmsSHARE program, funded primarily by  Blue Cross and Blue Shield of North Carolina. Carolina Farm Credit and Xylem Watermark also provided funds.

Paycheck Protection Program (PPP). Tega Hills Farms was able to secure a PPP loan from the U.S. government.

All these programs helped Tega Hills Farms bridge the rocky weeks of the early shut down.  The FarmsSHARE program alone bought 500 to 800 heads of lettuce a week.

“That helped save us the first few months,” Mark says.

Production Changes

Changing your customer base is about more than logistics. It also includes reworking production schedules and switching crops. But there was one problem.

“Everything was planted for the summer when it shut down,” Mark says.

Prior to the pandemic-induced changes, Tega Hills grew 100 pounds of micro greens a week and squash blossoms for its restaurant customers.

“In the highlight of our business, we sold between 8,000 and 10,000 squash blossoms every year to restaurants. And that is pretty much gone,” Mark says.

Neither of those crops work well for direct to consumer sales. So the Robinsons made lemonade.

“When the pandemic hit, we just left [the microgreens] growing on the table, then sold them later on as baby greens,” Mark says.

As for the squash blossoms, Tega Hills is selling baby squash instead.

An advantage of retail sales are the margins. Tega Hills produces 2,000 heads of lettuce a week, both prior to the pandemic and through to today.

“We now sell a greater percentage of lettuce directly to retail customers at a price that is 33% higher than restaurant prices. We also increased our per head charge to restaurants by 25%, partly to help offset the loss in microgreen sales, and partly because we probably should have already increased our prices a few years ago,” Mindy says.

Re-evaluating Labor

The first six weeks of quarantines were intense, Mindy says. They had to let go of employees because they were not sure their receivables were going to come in and allow them to make payroll.

“It was just myself, my partner, and our daughter — who is in high school. She did a lot of farm work while the schools were shut down,” she says.

In that short period before they were able to bring employees back, their church pitched in. Volunteers gave them breathing room to reconfigure and rehire.

Some things changed when employees returned, including higher wages.

“At the time, we were competing with what people would get from unemployment. We also hired another employee, at a higher rate,” Mindy says.

A higher payroll means the Robinsons face decisions going forward. They want to make sure their crew’s duties and professionalism in the field are on par with salary expectations, Mindy says.

Projected changes for 2021

“Last year our question was: ‘What can we grow that our restaurants want?’ This year the question that we are
trying to answer is, ‘What can we grow that our retail consumers want?’” Mindy says.

Tega Hills Farm is planning to dabble in cut flowers and continue to focus on items that sell best with their growing retail consumer base.

“Before we were looking to become providers of niche products to restaurants. Now that the restaurant accounts aren’t as large, we can shift our focus to something that our retail customers want,” Mindy says.

The Robinsons will be watching their markets closely throughout 2021, matching demand to their capabilities.

With a more diversified customer base, the small operation is well positioned to last well into the future.

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At a Glance: Tega Hills Farms

Size: 2 acres

Location: Fort Mill, SC

Types of production: 14,000 sq.ft. of greenhouses; 3,000 sq.ft. of high tunnel; 1,700 sq.ft of raised; beds equipped as low tunnels; 1,000 sq.ft. space that contains walk-in cooler, packing area, retail sales, maintenance, planting line, and germination chamber

Crops grown: Microgreens, lettuce, edible flowers, cucumbers, broccolini, nine varieties of petite greens, peppers, tomatoes, squash for blossoms, sugar snap peas, onions, cutting flowers, radishes, turnips, carrots, beets, peppers and eggplants and assorted winter and summer greens