We were lucky to catch up with Lauren Palmer recently and have shared our conversation below.

Lauren , looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. Too often the media represents innovation as something magical that only high-flying tech billionaires and upstarts engage in – but the truth is almost every business owner has to regularly innovate in small and big ways in order for their businesses to survive and thrive. Can you share a story that highlights something innovative you’ve done over the course of your career?

Create a forest school on our farm. Simply listening to families who enjoy our CSA and what all the farm means to people. Education seemed to be the next best idea and after 2 years of successful camp opportunities here, we brought on education in a big way.

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?

We are a vegetable farm first and from there we have been able to create so many branches that support the produce side. The beauty of this farm is that the dreams are endless and it can look different each season. I never tire of ways to bring people here and involve the community. Started 13 years ago with a mighty push from friends and family to get my small garden veggies to market. I came to love the people part and understanding what chefs and families wanted us to grow and we did just that. They held my hand while I steady grew and lost and everything in-between. With no formal training in agriculture and just a summer with a young farmer couple, I took on this business with a mind set to feed people and that alone would be enough to make the world go around. Farming brings questions and a deep dive into how and why, I welcomed that and quickly became the little farm that could and open to hear what customers needed and wanted. Literally opening the gates to events, so many shoots, overnight opportunities, and of course our school came later! I have always been a yes farmer and have been known to rent out my house, if you name it we can do it. It was a time when going green and being sustainable was new and so glad to be on the forefront of that thinking. Not only in the way we eat but educate too. With a family eye for design, we are a farm that stands out and produce looks good on us.

How’d you build such a strong reputation within your market?

We are customer first and being of service was my social work background. If a chef wanted an items by golly we found a way to deliver. Then we set our rules up when we got our feet under us. Being available and transparent people loved us for even our faults. Ever changing others would be on the look out to see what out next move was. I’ve enjoyed that being a part of who we are.

How do you keep your team’s morale high?

this is a good one! sometimes I think of myself less in the food business but more in the people business. we grow people more than food. We are female heavy and post divorce wanted strong ladies around me. Never felt intimidated and welcomed the feminine creativity and care of what we do. So many ladies have gone to build business that we support here on the farm now and I love to see staff graduate from programs to find them back here again. Encourage a team mentality and we work as one, I like us cross training and others knowing what we all do to get it done.

Contact Info:

• Website: bloomsburyfarms.com
• Instagram: Bloomsburyfarm
• Facebook: Bloomsburyfarm

Image Credits
Melissa hope