Highland Ledge Farm

Today I'm talking with Ed, Emily and Corey at Highland Ledge Farm. You can follow on Facebook as well.

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00:00
This is Mary Lewis at A Tiny Homestead, the podcast comprised entirely of conversations with homesteaders, cottage food producers, and crafters. If you're enjoying this podcast, please like, subscribe, share it with a friend, or leave a comment. Thank you. Today I'm talking to Ed and Emily and Corey at Highland Ledge Farm. Good morning, guys. How are you? Good morning. We're great. I'm good. Tell me all about yourselves and Highland Ledge Farm.

00:27
We're a small business that produces all, makes all of our own jams, mustards, vinegars, simple syrups, and short breads. And we travel to different fairs, markets.

00:47
Okay, so how did you, how did that happen? How did you start it?

00:54
So we started a long time ago. Emily used to do fares and such recently, I guess about six years now. I think, yeah. I retired and decided to help Emily with her business. And so we put a little more effort into marketing

01:24
all that sort of thing, productizing, and kind of kicked off the business as it is today. Okay, so, okay, I don't know what to ask. Okay, so let me let me tell you, we're we're on 37 acres up on top of a mountain in the Berkshires in Massachusetts. Okay. We go to about 70 fare.

01:53
fairs and season and vend retail there. We also service about a dozen stores with wholesale. We sell products too as well. We do all our own labels, all our own packaging. Most of the fruit and such comes from the farm or locally.

02:22
Uh, we do most of our food prep cooking packaging in the winter because in the summer we're involved with selling it.

02:33
Okay. So do you travel outside of New England? Not yet. But we're looking at some shows that might be good for us outside of New England. Okay. And do you ship your goods? Yes, we do. We have a website that's active purchasing and shipping from the website. Okay. So here in Minnesota, we have a thing called

03:02
cottage food registration where we can make baked goods or jams or jellies or canned goods and sell them without having to be licensed as a commercial seller. So does Massachusetts have that or do you have to be a commercial? Massachusetts and in fact New Hampshire, Vermont, New York are the states we sell in. All of those states and locations.

03:31
All those states have cottage food definitions. In Massachusetts, to be a cottage food manufacturer, you have to have, it can only be non-potentially hazardous, NPF foods. Or it's also now it's called non-temperature sensitive. You can only do those foods, but you still have to be licensed and inspected.

04:01
Okay. The only restriction is we're not allowed to sell wholesale outside of the state. Okay so every single state has a different set of laws regarding this, I swear. Well it's all based on the FDA.

04:24
rules. I forget how exactly it's tied, but typically to get a commercial license, you have to be inspected to state standards, which typically mirror the FDA standards. The CAUTI's license relieves some of the requirements of the FDA standards if you promise not to do a wholesale outside the state. Yeah, okay. So, people, some people,

04:52
have a perception that when you work for yourself, it's easier. And I don't hold that perception because we started a small business last summer and we were busy all the time. So, do you guys put in 80 hour weeks? Yeah, I don't know where people get the idea that we're not busy. So, typically if we are awake, we could be doing business.

05:22
So anything can happen. Somebody could call, we need to get this, we need to get that. Somebody has a show for one weekend, we're open, so we have to scramble to get the paperwork in. So the business just happens, it's part of our regular life. It's not a separate thing. I think there's two or three different kinds of people like us that have their own business. There's the people who just wanna make

05:52
couple of bucks under the table. And they go to all of these events. And there's people like.

06:04
who have enough money to be able to do it right and they have a fancy set up and so on and so forth. And there's people like us, right in the middle, who wanna do it right, who take the time to get the...

06:24
paperwork and the permits and have made a good booth presentation and just keep trying and trying and trying to make it grow and that's that's the way it is I mean you see you see people all the time at shows and you can tell that they're not licensed

06:54
but they're doing something with their time and stuff like that, but just they aren't spending a lot of time doing it. For people like us who use foods, who do stuff and care about how it tastes and things like that, it's like an 80 hour a week job. Yeah.

07:20
because you're living it, you're living it and breathing it and maybe sleeping it. It's, it's, I wouldn't give it up for anything, but it's, it's not always easy at all. Yeah. So, you know, that's what I think about it. We wouldn't do it if we didn't love it. Well, yes.

07:49
That's what a lot of people say, but they aren't really living it. I think it's fun. I think it's not fun, but it's funny when I'm like, okay, I'm taking today off. I am not doing any work today. And then I spend six hours doing work. Yeah. You know, there's always something that you got to do, you know, cleaning up, preparing for a new show.

08:18
organizing the shed that we keep our jars in. Someone local place an order so you got to do a delivery or someone non-local place an order so you got to go to the post office after packaging everything up. So I didn't mention we do local deliveries. If you're within 20 miles of us we deliver it to you directly so. Yeah and that that takes time too out of your day so. Yeah.

08:47
It does. And you know, it's always every year we sit down and say

08:56
What are we going to change this year? How can we do better than last year? And every year it gets better. Yeah. But, you know, I think we had six jams when we started. That was it. No, not going to do anymore. Uh-huh. And what are you up to? 14 jams. Four mustards. Four vinegars.

09:26
Four syrups, cookies. Shortbread cookies. We got a plethora of sliced and dried fruits. Drink mix concoctions that we put together. It keeps growing. Yeah, it's amazing how this particular kind of business just does that on its own. It's like it just takes off and you can't stop it. Yeah.

09:55
Exactly. Okay. You know, I don't know if I'd want to stop it completely.

10:06
Yeah, because it's a social life too. I mean, yeah. Everybody I know does something for the business. Every every place I go has something to do with the business. You know, it's just the way it is. Yeah, it's a big community. We make friends with other vendors, the vendor coordinators. And we recognize people from.

10:32
different states going to all these different shows who are just having fun with their summer or spring and fall. We're like, Hey, we saw you. And they're like, yeah. Yeah. Okay. So what's the relationship here with you guys? Is it Ed and Emily married and Corey's a daughter or what? Okay. All right. Cool. I wasn't sure and I wanted to, I wanted to make sure I found out.

10:59
So there's a saying about if you do what you love, you will never work a day in your life. And I love that saying, but I also have a little bit of a beef with it because I think no matter what you're doing, whether you love it or it's a jobby job, it's work. I think that the saying means that if you love it, it's good fun work. So is that where you guys are at with this? Yes.

11:26
Yeah, I the first year that we haven't wanted to change anything. Yay. Yes, I know it's it's all the products are going where they're supposed to go. And you know, the ones we don't like are kind of dropping off and we're not remaking them. It's our show. Shows are getting better.

11:55
We're getting called to do shows, which is really kind of weird. Fantastic. Yes. I think though that...

12:13
in this business, you kind of have to find a niche. Mm-hmm. I mean, I know jam's jam, but you have to find a niche where that jam is gonna sell the way you want it to sell. And you fill up your show dates the best you can, but you try and do the...

12:42
bulk of them in a certain venue. For instance, Renaissance Fairs. I love those. We do about five of those a year. And they are our best sellers. And I have so much fun going to them. I love interacting with the customers. The vendors are.

13:10
not just the vendors, the actors, they're hilarious. And they always bring friends with them. It's a lot of fun to do. But you know, that takes care of Maine, Vermont, New Hampshire, New York, and Massachusetts for us as far as those things go.

13:38
We do a lot of Scottish games or we try to. We haven't always gotten to them. But, you know, that's our venues. Yep. And a particular note, I hope it's on topic, but most of the states we go to, except for Massachusetts, the state regulates how we behave as a cottage vendor.

14:08
In Massachusetts, though, every town is allowed to permit you. Okay. For a health permit? So we have to obtain permits to sell, so we, to give samples and sell food. And every town we go to in Massachusetts. Wow. At significant cost. So we've.

14:35
We actually prefer to do fairs outside of Massachusetts because of that. Yeah. And that's unfortunate since you live in Massachusetts, it doesn't seem right. I know. That's, it's kind of weird. Yeah. Um, I have a question about last year, last season. Did you guys notice that people weren't quite as free with their expendable fundage to spend on your stuff? So last year was, was about.

15:05
20% down from the previous year. We attributed it not as a spending tightness, but because of the weather was consistently, it consistently rained every weekend last year. They wouldn't come out to the show. So we felt like it was more attributable to that than spending aversion. Okay, we just started our small business last April.

15:35
and we were selling at the farmers market and selling on property here, produce and stuff. And people in Minnesota had pretty decent weekends last year here in our area. But this inflation thing was kicking everyone's heiny from here to Timbuktu. So people didn't really want to spend a lot of money on extras as it were.

16:04
seems to be the way that could be what we found out about produce is that when COVID happened the next year everybody had their own garden yep and they didn't need as much produce you know I would suggest you supplement produce with things like honey, jams, eggs

16:32
things like that and see if that helps. Yeah, and we are going to be doing that this year, but we were brand new last year and didn't know what the hell we were doing. So it was like, let's throw everything out there and see what sticks. Yeah, I remember. I remember. That's not the way to do it. Yeah, I remember doing produce and saying, how the heck do people usually do this every week? Yeah. I was just stuffing bags of lettuce like crazy.

17:00
Yeah. It's like, how do they do this all week, every week? Yeah. The first year is just trying to figure out what's going on. Yeah. Yeah. The first year, like you said, you didn't know what you're doing. And so it's interesting you mentioned that. So we have, there's, there's a difference between packaged food sales and produce sales.

17:28
You can go to a farmer's market and sell produce every week. But for packaged food like jams, et cetera, because it's not an immediate consumable, people store it. So we only do well at those shop-most markets on the first one. And maybe the next to the last or something like that. Because people are buying the jam they want and it's pretty much the same people that come.

17:58
There's not a lot of diversity in the crowd, not the diversity that most people talk of. I mean, so we don't do farmers markets anymore because they don't do it. Also the interesting thing in Massachusetts is the regulatory agency for the farmers markets is different than the regulatory agency for the food.

18:23
So of course it is. I know. So they have, they have, we, we during COVID it was terrible because the, the agricultural people and the health, which is different than the board of health people, food safety were at odds about what the rules were. And we had to cancel lots of shows because they couldn't figure it out. Because they weren't allowing sampling. At the.

18:53
The agriculture people was not allowing sampling. Uh-huh. So I'll tell you a funny situation. We were signed up to go to a fair where we could sample because it was regulated by the Board of Health, but they combined it with a food fair and the agriculture group would not allow sampling. Not down and drag out. And sampling is a killer. I mean, we have to have sampling. We would not be able to survive without sampling. We get people to taste it.

19:23
we got 80% chance of a sale.

19:26
But if they're just looking at the jars on the table, they're not gonna buy that much. Nope, and it doesn't matter how pretty the label is or the jam inside the jar is. If they can't taste it, they don't wanna take the chance. Absolutely right. And we have to remember, when we do shows, especially for that, we are a food commodity. We're not a staple. That's why for us it's interesting, our wholesale business and our retail, our retail business is a commodity.

19:56
our wholesale business is we're trying to be a staple, a grocer. Yeah. So it's, there's a whole different attitude and a whole different way we go about that the labels have to stand alone. So you really have to pay attention to your labeling and your cost in the wholesale market and the commodity retail market. It doesn't matter. I mean, you can go in there with a handwritten label and if it's good, you know, people taste it, they'll buy it.

20:22
Yeah. And honestly, packaging is a killer in cost. I can't believe how much it costs us to label the stuff that we did last year. So I'll tell you what I did. If you can afford the initial investment.

20:39
We bought our own label machine and our own label printer. And so we buy the rolls of labels that we want from a place that sells just the labels. And we do our own production, our own design, our own artwork, work, et cetera. You can go on your website and see the results of that. I think it's pretty good. It's about three quarters to a half of the cost. What? That's.

21:08
printing our own labels versus... Oh yeah, yeah. Three quarters of what you would get. If we had contracted out, because we have a lot of people that send out for their labels. Yeah. And we do it for about 75% of their cost. Nice. In fact, we've gotten so good and efficient at it that I've offered to make labels, people have looked at us making their labels for them. Yeah, and Ed does our labels and they're fantastic.

21:37
Yeah. Um, and I don't, okay. I feel like we're kind of ragging on the stuff of running a business and I don't want to discourage people from trying to start a business. I think. Yeah. Yeah. What you're saying is true. We, we are kind of ragging on it, but we wouldn't do it if we weren't doing something we enjoyed. Right. Yeah. In every business there's widgets.

22:07
you know, those little things that have to be just so. Labels is one of them. Jarz is one of them. Display is one of them. And...

22:19
That's what we do. And we're talking about it because that's what you do. We all want to know how another person handles that kind of little widget. And yeah, you know that it shouldn't discourage people. No, I mean, they should, they should see someone doing stuff like us and say, I'd like to do that. I have a better idea for a label. And ask us.

22:49
How do you do that? What do you use? I've met people, food business for the farmers is supposedly a huge business in this state.

23:09
I know someone who spent a year plus just talking about how their label is going to be designed. And I'm going like, I have to eat. I can't wait that long for that stuff. I just, you know, some people put too much into it. I get a great deal of satisfaction when we go to a fair.

23:39
or a show or something and somebody says, oh, look at the nice labels and blah, blah, blah. We put our labels or have UPCs on them. They have the FDA required ingredients list and nutrition labels. I put all that stuff on there. It's just great when people go to a fair and see us, it's just the three of us. Yet our stuff looks very professional, very nice art wise, at least I think.

24:08
Yeah, and some a lot of people think that we don't make it because of that. Yeah, I've had people. Yeah, I've had people say, you don't make this. Yeah, we do. Yeah, yeah, I do. Ask her what she's going to be doing in two days. But like people are like, oh, I'm so sorry, but I want to try a sample. And I'm like, listen, samples are the best part of my day because I get to see you be happy with something that I did.

24:37
Oh, I'd love to give it out. I love samples. That's my favorite part is giving people samples. We make spicy jams as well. So I like giving samples of the spicy for the obvious reasons. I like to see how people react to that. But I just love getting the feedback from people directly on what it tastes like, what they think. That's one of the good things about our businesses is that we get immediate feedback.

25:06
And people are always asking, what would I do with this? Because say the jams, they're like, what would I do with this besides toast? I'm like, I wish that I had a whiteboard behind me that I could just wheel out of all these things you could do with things. But it gets me conversing with people and I get to just the interaction with everybody in different communities and different ways that.

25:34
all these people do the same thing. Yeah. And. I mean, that's absolutely, for me, that's the number one thing. Number two thing is actually the money and make the selling stuff. But just interacting with the people's, it's just kind of cool. I just cannot understand people at fairs, craft shows, whatever, just sitting there behind their table doing nothing.

26:06
someone comes up they say hello and that's it. So we're very active we have to be careful we're not too active we're very active with the customers in promoting. You want to sell your cookies? Sell your cookies but sell them in a good way I mean you know these cookies are so good you aren't going to believe it you might want to get a jar of jam in order to put on top of the cookies. Yes.

26:35
They sell. You know, when you do things like that, but when you say, here's a cookie, you know, people say, eh, I don't know. You know, and that's it. I don't know, when we get samples of cookies, they just buy the cookie. Ha ha ha.

26:54
Well, yes, because you never know where you're going to get those cookies again. You should buy them while they're in front of you. Yeah. Yep. Okay. I, I have, I have a minor suggestion you might want to consider about when people say, what can I use the jam for besides toast? You guys have a website. You can put a page on your website with ideas for people to use your jam. Yep. We could. And we.

27:21
thought of that and we will do that as soon as we get around. That has actually been the plan for a while now. I've been contemplating making a recipe book for like five years now and I haven't gotten to it. You gotta have the time. You do. And the thing is, is that Ed and I are getting older. And we just...

27:51
We've got all these great ideas. And we say, Kourt, you can do this. Kourt, you can do this. And it's like, there's always so much I can do, help. Yep, yep, exactly. And when somebody says we're getting older, my first thought is, aren't we all? It's not that bad. I mean, I still love what I'm doing. Good.

28:21
Good. Okay. I have one more question for you and then I will probably wrap it up. Um, Ed sounds like he might not be from New England and Emily, and Emily sounds like she is for sure. So am I right? You're right. Yep. Corey and I are from Vermont, extreme Northern Vermont. They're right up here in the Canadian border. I was, I'm from Virginia. Yep. Okay.

28:49
He did a lot of business with the Navy, and he went from place to place to place. We finally got together and stuff like that. That's how we started working together, living together, loving together, stuff like that. Yeah, I wasn't in the Navy. I was an engineer for shipbuilding, general dynamics. Okay, yeah.

29:11
I grew up in Maine, so I'm very aware of New England accents. And I was like, I don't think Ed's from around there to start with. Yeah. So it's funny because I've lived in New England. I mean, I lived in Maine for 11 years. Yup. I worked at Bath Ironworks in Maine, so. Mm-hmm. I don't know. Yup. I don't think I have an accent. What are you talking about? A little bit. Just a little bit. It's not real obvious. It's funny. If I go visit.

29:41
somewhere in the south. I come back and for a couple of weeks I'm worse. Yeah, he says peony and cement. Uh-huh. Yeah, my grandpa. Yep, northern people think it's kind of hilarious to hear that. It's like watching the Beverly Hillbillies for a while. No. Not that bad. It is to me, but anyway, so...

30:11
Yeah, he's not from New England. He's not from around there. My, my grandma, well, my mom's parents lived in Illinois. And so my mom was raised until she was 19, living in Illinois. And then she married my dad and moved to Maine with him because that's where he was from. So I grew up listening to my mom talk with a very Midwestern, kind of Southern drawlish accent. And my dad.

30:41
with his Down East Maine accent. And I ended up right in between. I really don't feel like I have an accent at all. So it's very weird. But again, I'm very aware of people's accents because my dad makes fun of me now because I don't sound like I grew up in Maine at all. Yeah, you do have a bit of a Midwestern little. Little bit. But it's not terribly obvious. A friend of mine, every time I say the word

31:10
now I'm going to overthink it, room or roof. He's like, what are you talking about, Corey? Why, why are you going into a rum? Funny stuff like that. Yeah. And they say route up here. They say route. Yeah. But it's route. That's something that we can talk to our customers about too. Uh huh.

31:36
They pick it up and they say it and they say this and the other thing. And we know what they're talking about. So I don't know if you caught it. We were talking about the theme things we go to. We go in garb, in costume. Sure. Yep. We've been in kilts and all that kind of stuff. At least I do. When we've got a place to go that takes that stuff. Like Scottish games, rent fairs, those are full garb. Those are fun.

32:06
It's super fun. Of course, you don't want to wear wool when it's 90 degrees out, but there you go. No, no you do not. We, we, you know, people may not understand and think and be intimidated when they meet someone who looks professional, who does everything, seems, seems they do everything right and things like that, but everybody had to start it.

32:36
same place, the beginning, and do the best they can and each year improve it a little. Yes. Each year improve it a little. Dive into it. Have fun. Do it. Do it your way. And that's one of the best parts of having your own business is you get to do it your way. Yes. And that's what you're saying is that that's why it's called growing a business. Yes. So. But.

33:05
Anyway, guys, this was really fun. I didn't know I was going to get to talk to three people in one shot today. Thank you for your time. I really appreciate it. Thank you. This is fun. Thank you. Have a fantastic day in beautiful Massachusetts. You as well. You too. All right, thanks. Bye.