Produce Grower: First of all, what is a specialty crop? Why are growers producing them and what are some examples?
Max Salinger, CropKing: Although hydroponics is fairly new, and greenhouse production is fairly new, there are more and more of these really large hydroponic tomato growers and hydroponic lettuce growers. A lot of them are in Canada and Arizona, but they’re still hitting the same types of markets where historically our customers have really worked at. The more variety you’re able to offer, the more competitive it makes you with the bigger growers.
So more and more, we’re seeing people that are branching out into these more diverse-type crops [to fill in the gaps]. A lot of these specialty greens in particular are going to be out-of-season half of the year, and chefs and restaurants and a lot of other venues struggle with some of that consistency. So identifying those varieties becomes a large role for a lot of our growers.
Some interesting [specialty] crops we’ve seen grown are ones like eggplants, all kinds of varieties of cucumbers. Kolhrabi is another good one. Tomatillos. I’ve got customers that do hot peppers, summer and winter squash. Another one is rhubarb. We’ve had customers that have done rhubarb in Dutch buckets before.
Another example that people don’t think about, too, could be edible flowers. So nasturtiums are a really good kind of strange, edible flower. They’re very spicy and that’s a really good thing. Taro is another type of leafy green that’s kind of a spicy Asian green; even the root vegetable could be done.
PG: How can growers get their specialty crops to market?
MS: When customers are first establishing markets and looking into venues for sales, it’s often a really overwhelming time because you never know where to start. I’ve had growers that will plant out entire greenhouses right when they are getting going, without necessarily having an idea of the exact market that they’re going to, and that can be difficult. That’s where we see a lot of the specialty crops and the niche markets becoming particularly effective for our smaller growers. You can start on the smaller side of things.
A lot of times, these are going to be based with restaurants, farmers markets and even grocery stores.
I always tell my customers this story — I’ve got a grower that for a while, was selling to restaurants. And the restaurant actually approached him and asked if he could grow dandelion greens for one of their salads. And he was just cracking up about it, because he’s like “I’ve had dandelions growing as weeds all over my backyard.” And now he has a large customer that’s purchasing quite a bit of these dandelion greens off of him for their specialty salads.
It doesn’t have to be something completely crazy, something like bok choy or mezzuna or some of the Asian greens that might be a little more difficult to grow. Something as simple as standard field greens that can provide consistency. And that’s the big selling point behind any of our greenhouse production, is that consistency.
PG: Could you lend some advice about how to get out in the community and form those relationships?
MS: A lot of that really comes down to having the courage or the ability to be extroverted when it comes to being active in your community, whether that be the farmer’s market, which is a great venue for finding people. I’ve talked to growers who have gone to the local business organizations where they have monthly meetings, and talked to people about what they’re doing. CSAs, community supported agriculture, are definitely a good way to move a lot of product. We have one customer that does a one-item CSA.
One of the biggest things is just being able to use word of mouth. References are absolutely humongous, especially in small agriculture. You impress one customer, they give you the names of other people, and that networking is huge. In that same vein, social media is obviously becoming really big in reaching out to a broader amount of people and just putting your business out there.
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