We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Vanessa Kuemmerle a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.
Vanessa, appreciate you joining us today. Folks often look at a successful business and imagine it was an overnight success, but from what we’ve seen this is often far from the truth. We’d love to hear your scaling up story – walk us through how you grew over time – what were some of the big things you had to do to grow and what was that scaling up journey like?
The large wedding markets in our area has been the key to the success of this farm. Being well established is a great thing to walk into, but the real game now to scale up is in the day to day work that isn’t always sexy but needs to be done consistently. Such as, delivering the highest quality, freshest flowers, managing worker efficiency, providing new and interesting varieties for our clients, dealing with the inevitable wins and losses associated with farming/working with Mother Nature and all the while attempting to have a decent and satisfying life.
Oh, and by the way, having a satisfying life does not mean “life balance”, that’s a self soothing/self help concept that doesn’t apply to entrepreneurs or farmers. It’s about having the attitude of Winning. Winning in business, winning in growing flowers well, winning in life, and winning in relationships of all kinds-period. Attitude is everything-Failure is not an option.
Vanessa, 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?
Florage Farms is a 12+ acre farm located in Southeastern Idaho and grows cut flowers for high end florists and event designers in three of some of the largest wedding markets in the West: Jackson Hole, WY, Sun Valley, ID, and Salt Lake City/Park City, UT through Picklinq- a flower collective in Utah.
We are one of the largest independent flower farms in the West and we focus on quality and quantity as well as unique and rare varieties of flowers that designers crave and cannot find easily elsewhere, especially at the quantities we provide.
Lorin Harrison, the owner has been farming here for 5 years and previously farmed in Utah on an apple orchard/cider press/vegetable and cut flower farm. This flower farm has been in production for over 30 years and was previously called Bindweed Farm, founded by Ralph Thurston and Jeriann Sabin in 1994. They are one of the OG’s of cut flower growers in America in the later half of the 20th century. Ralph has written rye and witty books on how to flower farm, full of practical information for the aspiring all the way through to the most seasoned farmer. Lorin and his then partner, purchased the farm from them in 2020- right at the moment the world shut down. It was a crazy time to take over a business and plenty of hard times that year to be sure but he has persevered and grown the business.
We have 12-14 employees during the growing season. A general manager, farm manager, processing room manager, harvesters, delivery drivers, and farm hands. The farm is a 7 day a week operation- all day, every day.
I came to the farm in 2024 after meeting and falling in love with Lorin a couple of years ago. My background is in horticultural consultation (Apple, Inc and private clients), landscape design (Google Campus in Silicon Valley and private estates), and event coordination (Burning Man and various SF/Bay Area underground events in the 1990’s). I left my own flower farm in Maine to be with Lorin and help him take the farm to the next level.
Can you tell us the story behind how you met your business partner?
I met Lorin in Massachusetts, at the Association of Specialty Cut Flower Growers conference in 2022. I had moved to Maine to build a cut flower farm the year before after the death of my husband. I had 30 year long successful career as an entrepreneur in horticultural consultation and landscape design, working with private and corporate clients throughout the San Francisco Bay Area.
Lorin and I hit it off immediately, two plant geek peas in a pod, and began a long distance plant friendship (believe me, when you find someone as into plants as you are, they are a rare bird in this world!) which gradually blossomed (bad pun) into more than a friendship. Our first date was a 10 day trip to Belgium for an epic florist retreat with Emily Avenson at Château de Wodémont. With a background as an artist, and a fine arts degree from California College of Arts and Crafts this was creative heaven for me, super fun for us getting to know each other better and talk all things plants and flowers, we just clicked.
As things progressed and I finished building out my farm, it became clear that being apart from Lorin was way less fun than accomplishing my new business goal to create a cut flower farm in Maine by myself. So, I pulled up stakes and moved Westward Ho! The first year was a busy one, learning the ropes and getting my sea legs at Florage. Between familiarizing myself with the details of climate in Idaho and the specific plants grown on the farm, getting to know our florists and markets, and and working with our on farm team, it was a steep learning curve- but I like a challenge 😉.
Can you tell us about what’s worked well for you in terms of growing your clientele?
At this point on the farm, the markets are established, the flowers are growing and it is all about the myriad little things that make or break the business. We are the biggest and best flower farm in the area and staying on top is the name of the game.
A few things that we are doing now:
1) Serving our existing floral designers impeccably, communicating clearly with them and continuing to build those relationships.
2) Continuing to add to our client base. We get new clients through word of mouth, referral and exposure through Instagram. We do not advertise and are not on any other social media. All of our Instagram followers have come organically and we do not have any particular strategy with social media- we simply share when we can with what is happening on the farm.
3) Working closely together as a team, refining our processes, speed and accuracy. Creating clear SOP’s (standard operating procedures) for each task and crop, defining employee’s roles and expectations, giving frequent feedback and monthly reviews, weekly team meetings and biweekly team breakfasts. Creating a good collaborative work environment and team culture is top priority this season. We are only as strong as our weakest link. I imagine you have probably heard that one before, and I’m here to tell you, it’s 100% true.
We are compassionate AND no nonsense on the farm. Either you put your head down and do the work or you are done. Your choice. We start before dawn and it is tedious, physical labor combined with discernment, accuracy, speed and focus. Not a job for lollygaggers or space cadets. Working outdoors in the elements with perishable flowers can sometimes be hard. The days often start out pitch dark, nearly freezing cold and by the end of the shift it is so hot and sunny that you are rushing to get the flowers in the cooler before they wilt and guzzle water so you don’t pass out.
No one can grow as a large business without a great team, period.
4) The stakes are high with a perishable product, and tight deadlines for events and sometimes mistakes are made. Unfortunately, it happens. These can be frustrating and potentially devastating for our client’s productions and we keep that well in mind every day. We are constantly refining our systems and processes to keep our accuracy in the delivery of our product as high as possible. When we do make mistakes, we immediately communicate and acknowledge, find out why it happened, and make clear what we will do differently to eliminate it happening again.
Basically, to grow our clientele, we work to grow ourselves, our team, and our skills first and foremost. Providing the freshest, highest quality product and customer service possible.
Discipline is not a gift or an inherited trait, it is a skill. We get up every day, show up, and DO THE WORK. Like I said before, it ain’t sexy, but it is satisfying at the end of the day. We serve and grow through the consistent application of discipline, showing up and not giving up. THAT is winning the day.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.floragefarms.com
- Instagram: @floragefarms
