A quick reminder before we dive into this week's topic, our final Tomato U-Pick of 2017 is tomorrow! There ain’t nothing like harvesting your own food, especially these sweet summertime 'maters. Pick it or miss it! Soon it’ll be too hot for our tomatoes to make it through the impending and relentless heat. The quality of this crop right now cannot be beat. If you sign up before the event, you can purchase 1 tomato box for a discounted $20, or on the day of, it will be $30 for a box. All boxes can be piled high with tomatoes! So sign up now to take advantage of that yummy discount. Pile the literal fruits of your labor as high as you can for all that canning, salsa-making, and tomato pie! A note on the kiddos: We might be biased, but we indubitably believe that this is one of the best events out there for your kids. We hope you consider bringing the whole family to bask in the sun and get some fresh air! Plus, Cold Ones Pops will be out there keeping us cool with their delectable popsicles! Back to Brenton!

I'm sure that you've heard the news of Amazon's recent acquisition of Whole Foods for a hefty $13.4 billion. It's been weighing on quite a lot of food producers' minds as of late. This news definitely is accompanied with a deluge of unanswered questions and concerns, as the repercussions won't be felt for a little while. With Amazon's low-price precedent, small producers who sell to Whole Foods have been worried about how this merger will affect their dealings with this grocer. Being an extremely positive person, I think that there is a lot of potential for this next generation grocery era that we are creeping into.

Photo by Scott David Gordon.

JBG has had an amazing relationship with Whole Foods since we first starting selling wholesale in 2009/10 which coincided with when we started selling to restaurants, too. Our knowledge expanded exponentially about quality and grading during this time. Before that, we didn’t have to worry too much about that with CSA and farmer’s markets; however, expectations are all about consistency with wholesale accounts. The first time we ever dealt with Whole Foods, we tried to sell tomatoes, but we had no idea how to pick them for wholesalers. None of the tomatoes we provided for them were quite ripe enough. The grocery stores didn’t have a ton of experience buying from local producers either, so we were both fishes out of water in this exchange. Whole Foods ended up buying 50 cases of tomatoes... I remember them piled up taller than me. However, the boxes weren’t strong enough to hold tomatoes, so they all started to crush in the warehouse. Needless to say, it was quite a disaster, and we ended up taking the whole order back and re-doing it. We've made a whole bunch of mistakes, especially in the beginning, but WF was and is so wonderful because they let us learn by doing. They have always been super supportive and patient with us during our learning process.

Photo by Scott David Gordon.

The grocer world is a tremendously competitive business segment. My brother who resides in West Palm Beach was just telling me the other day that a German discount grocery store, ALDI, is opening 900 stores in US during the next 5 years. That's crazy! There’s always going to be change because it’s such a competitive field. Those with the highest quality, best products, the best prices, and can satisfy their customers the most are the companies that are going to be the most successful. I’m excited to see what a company like Amazon can do to change how we think about what the norms of a grocery store are. Amazon is going to approach sales in a very different way... a highly innovative way that no one previously could have fathomed.

Photo by Scott David Gordon.

I think that our farm has a lot of potential when it comes to this new unchartered territory. Since we produce a larger volume of vegetables, and since we are one of the larger organic farms in Texas, if the consumer is asking for local, organic produce, I think and would hope that Amazon would source from us. It's possible for us to have a healthy and thriving relationship with Amazon, just like we did with Whole Foods. Also, since Amazon has become the top business to innovate and hasten delivery to be almost instantaneous, maybe they could help us to innovate as well. I can see a model where we would have the CSA boxes ready at the barn, and Amazon would come and deliver them for us in certain situations. Our mission is to provide healthy, local and organic veggies to the community, and if someone else can come in and deliver it more quickly than we currently do, I don’t have a problem with that at all. It's exciting to think that you can place an order, and have it delivered a couple hours later. That’s what people like about Instacart, it’s convenient and a quick turnaround. Who says that organic veggies can't be a part of that business model?

Photo by Scott David Gordon.

With regard to small producers and the low-price precedent that Amazon prides themselves on, Amazon pricing is all about supply and demand. If you have something that is limited availability, the price will reflect that. The goods that are really cheap are items that are abundant with lots of competitors selling something common. For our product there are few producers, which ideally would not affect our wholesale prices. I'm not worried about competing with California organic kale, because people in Austin value locally sourced, organic food. Have we mentioned... we love you, AUSTIN!

Photo by Scott David Gordon.

I know there’s demand for local organic produce, and I don’t think that it’s going away any time soon. I really do think that there is opportunity here, Amazon is great at selling products, and even better at delivering said products. Plus, the innovation never stops! I want to meet up with these folks, and figure out how to work together. I’m sad that Whole Foods has been acquired because they have been such wonderful partners, but optimistic that it can be an even brighter future! That's my two cents... 'Til next time, folks!