Triple B Farms covers 400 acres in Forward in southern Allegheny County and is well-known for having the public out for agricultural activities including popular you-pick produce.
But this weekend, the family-run farm is pivoting from pick-your-own to pick-up-your-own. Friday it launched curbside pickup of food, plants and flowers pre-ordered and paid-for via its new online store. The family is keeping the brick-and-mortar store closed to customers right now, and hasn’t decided whether it’s going to be able to let them pick strawberries as they ripen at the end of this month, due to COVID-19.
Adding an e-commerce site last month was the answer to, “How can we remedy this in some way?” says Suzanne Beinlich, who owns and runs the farm with her husband, Bill, and his parents, Ron and Carolyn Beinlich.
Even though farms and markets have been allowed to operate as essential businesses, they looked at the forecasts and could see that business, including the farm business, may well need to be contactless for a long time to come. So they worked with their webmaster to build an e-commerce component on their website — https://shoptriplebfarms.com — to sell their own products as well as those from partners around the region. Soon, they hope to add the ability to take orders to ship products, too.
“We’re taking it kind of baby steps,” says Ms. Beinlich, who notes that customers have been requesting shipping for at least a decade.
While they intend to open the farm market and pick-your-own berries, corn and apples when it’s safe to do so, and to continue to sell produce through other channels such as area supermarkets, “I don’t foresee us being able to take any of this [new service] back,” Ms. Beinlich said.
The COVID-19 crisis has spurred other farms across the region to cook up new ways to sell what they produce, and very quickly. Nancy Rostron Bianchin, whose grandparents started farming in the region in 1918, also has launched curbside pickup from a new online store at Bedner’s Farm Market in Upper St. Clair. Her cousins who run Bedner’s Farm & Greenhouse in McDonald also are offering online ordering, curbside pickup and delivery. As she puts it, “It’s just a whole different ballgame.”
Customers are liking it. In Butler County, Dillner Family Farm decided to add an online store and curbside pickup earlier this spring when the city farmers markets delayed opening until June. As at Triple B, customers place their orders 24 hours before picking them up on Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays. “It’s been very, very busy,” says Jane Dillner, who's having to keep an eye on the COVID-19 situation while she deals with usual farmer stuff such as a record-cold April that’s been killing asparagus and chilling the growth of rhubarb.
Curbside pickup is a lot of extra work: Instead of packing boxes, she’d rather be picking things in the field. She hopes to open her store for Mother’s Day, May 10, but because she doesn’t know when social-distancing restrictions will relax, she’s planting beets in rows 6 feet apart so food bank gleaners still will be able to harvest them.
After 165 years of farming in Marshall, Shenot’s Farm & Market added an online store and curbside pickup, too. Other venerable farms with their own stores, such as Soergel Orchards in Franklin Park and Harvest Valley Farm in Valencia, Butler County, are putting together boxes of “essentials” — produce and other foods, or produce only — that customers can preorder and pickup.
Others, such as Simmons Farm with two locations around McMurray in Washington County and Janoski’s Farm & Greenhouse in Clinton, are keeping their markets open, but requiring customers and workers alike to wear masks and take other recommended safety precautions.
Farms across the region are seeing a surge of interest in local foods, even before much local produce is yet in season. People are signing up for CSA, or community supported agriculture subscriptions that farms can regularly deliver to pickup points or subscribers. Farm to Table Western PA compiled, with help from Penn State Extension senior educator Maria Graziani, a list of farms offering CSAs and other direct-to-consumer options: https://farmtotablepa.com/summer-2020-csas.
One of those sources, Marketplace at Emerald Valley in Washington, Pa., is doing a booming business through its “virtual farm stand” that lets customers order boxes and a la carte products from 30 local growers and producers for delivery and curbside pickup. Owner Alisa Fava-Fasnacht feels like COVID-19 came up behind her and pushed her into a pool that she’s learning to swim in.
“We’re building this model literally as we go,” she says. Wherever it all goes, “I think we’re all going to walk away with a better food system.”
Despite the weather, it’s looking to be a good year for area farms. At Morris Organic Farm in Irwin, Ron Morris says he’s sold everything he’s grown so far, is planting as much as possible, and, “I expect to do very well.”
While he’s not sure how its operations will change, he expects to be selling at the Irwin Farmers Market. “We’re hoping by June, things will be fairly normal and [rules] easy to comply with.”
In the meantime, he plans to continue to offer customers the option of picking-their-own of whatever the farm grows on eight of his 22 acres. He believes its easy to keep individuals and family groups far enough apart in the open fields, where people make fun outings and photo ops of harvesting their own food. “It’s great,” he adds with a laugh. “I don’t have to do anything.”
Correction: This story originally placed Triple B Farms in the incorrect county.
Bob Batz Jr.: bbatz@post-gazette.com, 412-263-1930 and on Twitter @bobbatzjr.
First Published: May 3, 2020, 4:00 a.m.
