Pandemic pivot improved the bottom line

The COVID-19 pandemic forced many farm businesses to alter how they do business, but there is a silver lining. 

Having to pivot how their businesses operated brought new innovation, taught them resiliency and to have a greater appreciation for partnerships, several farm businesses told attendees at the recent Farm and Food Care Ontario annual meeting. 

“As small businesses, we have to cooperate. We have to partner with each other, and we have to help each other grow and drive forward with all of our sales,” said Marianne Edwards, Sheldon Creek Dairy operations and marketing manager. 

“COVID made you realize that this is all about – not competition – but co-opetition.”

Why it matters: While COVID-19 presented many challenges for the agriculture sector, it prompted a revamping of how on-farm business is run and led to profitable changes, which will continue long after the pandemic fades. 

Hard choices faced Edwards and her family’s 600-acre, 75-cow dairy and processing operation as the pandemic hit. They’d just broken ground on a production facility expansion when the world shut down, and the family questioned if it was wise to proceed. 

“It was a massive investment,” she said. 

The family decided to take the chance. “Thankfully, we did because today, if we were to build that building, we probably wouldn’t be able to afford the building size we have today.”

Prior to the start of the pandemic, Sheldon Creek Dairy products were available in 380 locations across Ontario, from farmers’ markets to restaurants to grocery store retail chains. As restaurants were shut down indefinitely and notices of receiverships rolled in three weeks later, Edwards wondered how they’d weather the storm. 

“We were probably never going to get paid for the amount (of milk and cheese) they hadn’t paid for the last month,” she said. “That took a big hit on our bottom line, but fortunately, our retail space was expanding pretty significantly.”

For the farm’s retail store, Edwards keyed in on what her customers were asking for, which extended well beyond dairy products and began bringing in 20 kg flour bags from the local mill that could no longer sell them to restaurants. 

Next, she ordered three pallets of 30-egg pack flats, which sold out within days and started marketing Brantwood Farm’s apple cinnamon doughnuts. The new products flew off the shelf and continue to be strong in-demand items. 

“There was a lot of collaboration and partnership that was happening, and that was pretty exciting,” she said. “It was a lot of adjusting from the packaging side as well to be able to support what our customers wanted.”

A key focus was the safety of customers and staff, which encompassed mental health. Edward said the idea of the ‘customer is always right’ stopped when they became abusive to staff. 

“We got to see the wonderful side of humanity,” she said. “But we also got to see the pretty dark side of humanity. I’m pretty sure anyone that’s in the food business got to see some of that.”

She said while she’s a mother of three, the pandemic made her a mother of 36 as she checked in on her employees to see how their energy and stress levels were. So when a staff member became COVID-positive, it was essential to deal with it the right way the first time. 

“If you don’t, you might not have that employee any longer, and that could be one of your greatest assets that walks out the door,” she said. 

Employees look to management for guidance on regulations, communication of expectations and some degree of support. 

“As employers, as businesses, that’s what our employees deserve, and we have to really keep thinking about that because this isn’t going away,” she said. “It’s not just about coming back from this – it’s about continuing where we started and what we’ve learned in the last two years.”

Mike Buis, owner of Buis Beef and Bloomfield Feed Company, rode the fences and checked on calves with his daughter when the pandemic shut the province down. He said they had a very frank conversation on whether she’d be willing to take over if the need arose and how the businesses would look. 

“We had to keep the wheels turning and figure out how things we’re going to be,” Buis said. “With all the businesses going on simultaneously, it was a real juggling act to figure out where we needed to be, what we needed to do and get all the pieces in place.” 

It became apparent early on when Buis’s wife was exposed to COVID-19 and needed to isolate that cross-training their 18 staff members was critical. 

“Right away, our key staff manager was out of business,” he said. “We would move people from riding cows checking calves to selling beef in the store the next day.” 

Fortunately, the beef and feed store worked off the same point of sale machine, making sales training easy. They switched to an online accounting program so the bookkeeper could work from home and Buis could go over the books when he had a moment at four o’clock in the morning. 

“We needed to figure out how we were going to do things more electronically to make it happen,” he said. “We got a lot more Google Sheets and a lot more sharing between all the businesses.”

Buis said they were fortunate to not only retain all their staff but had to hire more to manage telephone and online orders along with the deliveries. It also gave them some leverage when they’d lose staff to COVID for a few weeks without it impacting their jobs or the service the businesses provided. 

Despite launching a feed business during the pandemic, the store did well, primarily as customers focused on buying locally. He said their beef sales rose by 41 per cent and the feed store saw a 21 per cent increase. 

“Things are still moving forward, and we’re still doing well in both of those businesses,” Buis said. 

As a pick-your-own, festival-driven on-farm business Erin McLean, of McLean Berry Farm, wasn’t sure what the future held when pandemic protocols came into play days before their maple syrup festival. 

The first call of business was to order more handwash stations, increase their sanitation practices for the upcoming pick-your-own season, and get online to maintain sales for their maple syrup production. The second order of business was to be recognized as an essential service and hope protocols lifted for their annual pumpkin festival because it accounted for 10 per cent of their annual income.

McLean sacrificed a field so customers could drive out to the pick-your-own berry fields, modified their wagon with plexiglass dividers for those set on a wagon ride and revamped their engagement strategy to offset the loss of festival takings. 

“I’m really proud of the fact that the difference in our 2020 sales [without two festivals] and our 2019 sales was $34,” she said. 

“We really pushed our wholesale. We pushed our retail. We went out and found grocery stores or big businesses and new grocery stores we could sell wholesale to.”

It made up for the lost income, and McLean said their 2021 sales also increased. 

Looking to the future, McLean has questioned if the value of the social connections the festivals bring is worth the effort required to host them now that they’ve replaced the income. 

“But the community is telling us, ‘we would like to see those festivals’,” she said. “Now we’re looking at what the community needs. What we need as a business, as a family and where we can find that middle ground that works for everyone.”