We were lucky to catch up with Megan Neubauer recently and have shared our conversation below.
Hi Megan, thanks for joining us today. Let’s start with a story that highlights an important way in which your brand diverges from the industry standard.
Local farmers / market gardeners typically grow, harvest, prep, and take their produce to sell at farmers markets, farm stands, run a CSA, or sell wholesale to restaurants and distributers. This is a tremendous amount of work for a small farm and the profitability is extremely low. Four years ago we gave up all other distribution channels and now operate a pick-your-own agritourism destination, allowing us to grow more than quadruple what we used to with significantly less work.
Megan, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?
Pure Land Farm is a small pick-your-own farm in McKinney owned and operated by me and my dad, Jack. We do one hundred percent of the growing by ourselves using all organic methods, about two acres of annual fruits and vegetables and three acres of thornless blackberries. Pure Land’s picking season runs from about mid-May through about mid-July, it varies every year with the weather. We operate with a booking system, so that the number of people every day suits the amount of produce ready to pick. From the earliest ready crops to the latest, we grow onions, garlic, carrots, beets, blackberries, radishes, tomatoes, peppers, cucumbers, squash, sunflowers, and cantaloupes. We do the hard part, you do the fun part!
Can you tell us about a time you’ve had to pivot?
We started off like most farms like ours, taking our produce to farmers markets to get the best retail prices, but farmers markets are so limiting for farmers. First of all, produce picked ripe is best consumed as soon as possible, so delicate crops like cantaloupes or strawberries often can’t be picked on Monday when they’re ready and make it to a Saturday market. If it rains, you’re SOL. Too hot or too cold out, sorry! No sales for you. Most farmers markets allow resold wholesale produce under the guise that it was locally grown, diluting sales for actual farmer and confusing consumers. I could go on and on. Most pick-your-owns specialize in one crop – strawberries, blueberries, apples, etc. But there was tremendous interest from our customers in getting to pick EVERYTHING. It was nerve wracking but we took a leap of faith and believed our customers, giving up our market spots and converting the farm to fully pick-your-own. It has been an absolute game-changer for our profitability and quality of life.
Any stories or insights that might help us understand how you’ve built such a strong reputation?
Dad and I care very much about the guest experience on the farm. There’s a strawberry pick-your-own nearby that coincidentally opened the same year we did, and it’s so popular people have to get there an hour or two before opening to even get in. Dad and I agreed early on that we just couldn’t handle that kind of stress, which is how we came up with the booking system. We set a number of spots available per hour, and folks can just book them on the website. Over the years we’ve expanded as much as we can to meet the demand while staying in control, but our weekend spots still fill within a minute. It’s extra work for us, but peace of mind for the picker knowing they’ll get in without long lines and have plenty to pick, and for us that we have the right amount of people coming to pick the field clean (without picking it down to nubs). It can be really overwhelming during the season to answer everyone’s questions, so I created a pretty robust FAQ on the website at which to direct people – the more information you can provide about the experience, I think, the better. A lot of people who come out have never been to a farm before and never seen a carrot in the ground, so we really try to make our guests comfortable. We’ve cultivated a strong base of support that are truly like family now; we’re their farm, we grow their food every summer.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.purelandorganic.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/purelandfarm/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/PureLandFarm
Image Credits
Megan Neubauer