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Sed ut perspiciatis unde.
SubscribeWe caught up with the brilliant and insightful May Zegarelli a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.
May, thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today We’d love to go back in time and hear the story of how you came up with the name of your brand?
Almost 8 years ago, Tommy and I were looking on finding property for our family to grow. When we discovered our house in Eastport, it felt like home right away. We knew that we wanted to make it into a small farm but it was only a dream at that point considering all of the renovations that we had on our plate. As the work started to subside, we thought about turning my passion of growing flowers into a business. One cloudy afternoon, we were outside having a fire and a thick band of fog rolled in as we were sitting outside. That was nature sending us a sign on what our micro flower farm should be named Ocean Fog Farm. Since then, we have loved expanding on the branding of Ocean Fog Farm with the grey of the fog and the beautiful contrast that flowers can bring to a cloudy foggy day.
Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.
Our names are May and Tommy and we own Ocean Fog Farm which is located in Eastport, New York. May is the brains behind all of the floral arrangements, growing our flowers and wedding/event designs. Tommy is the backbone to our business doing the books and managing our feisty flock of chickens.
Our farm is centered around the history of Eastport, our family, our 4 dogs, and the beautiful flowers that grow on our property. While we both stumbled upon the beautiful hamlet of Eastport, we have a connection to this town and its agricultural history. Eastport has generations of farmers and we want to continue that tradition with our seasonally inspired bouquets.
May began growing flowers in a small plot in the back of her grandparents home. Every Summer, she and her Opa would plan out his vegetable garden and he gave her a plot to plant a bed of mixed flower seeds. Since then, May has continued her passion on their land and loves sharing the blooms they grow with every customer that visits. We are inspired by each season and pour that into our bouquets. Each season brings so much beauty, from the first tulips to the mornings we are harvesting armfuls of dahlias.
Can you share a story from your journey that illustrates your resilience?
When we first started, we had one main sales channel. We depended on that sales channel a bit too much and when they decided to go in house with their flowers, we really had to think quickly on how to reinvent our business. It was a tough time of year for us as well as it was January and two weeks before our son was born. As flower growers, we are always investing in more flowers, seeds, tubers and more a year ahead, so we had to quickly establish new sales channels for those investments we made.
This pushed us to redo our website, and build a flower stand. We started providing more options to other farm stands, restaurants, and markets. We also established a wholesale channel with a regional distributor. While it was a difficult expansion, this year has shown us that we can survive and we are glad we thought outside of the box. The best thing we ever did was to explore other sales channels, it made us become a more sustainable and well-rounded business.
This quote has stuck with me the most, “people don’t buy what you do, they buy why you do it”. We have tried to model our business and brand around our story and how to effectively communicate that to our customers. We are grateful for other small business owners providing us with advice and guidance to keep us going, especially as new parents.
Any thoughts, advice, or strategies you can share for fostering brand loyalty?
For us, we always want to be reachable to our clients and have a one-on-one feel to our business. We both feel that being friendly and that people can hear our voice as we do our Instagram posts or write our newsletters. We feel that when people know your story and who you are, they will feel as they are a part of your business, with that comes customer loyalty, which is so important to us. We are so grateful to those who came to our flower stand when we first opened it. People came because they loved why we do what we do and know our personal touch is there from picking the flowers to hand wrapping the bouquets.
Contact Info:
Image Credits
Dakota Rose Photography Gelfman Photography Nydiarose Photography Kylie Mones Photography Ocean Fog Farm
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