Fernald’s Country Store is the Damariscotta pickup side for a new expansion of FarmDrop, an online farmer’s market, throughout the county and region. (Elizabeth Walztoni photo)
Like many Midcoast food producers, Ellie Young and Derek DeGeer started their businesses as small passion projects. Young, of Cozy Cove Microbloomery in South Bristol, started growing microgreens and mushrooms as a hobby with her young daughter. DeGeer, of Hootenanny Breads in Nobleboro, began baking for friends in a borrowed oven.
As their customer bases grew, they both joined the online farmer’s market FarmDrop, a statewide organization headquartered in Blue Hill that provides a platform for customers to order from local producers on a weekly pickup schedule. That organization has grown, too, and brought in DeGeer and Young to help expand availability of a model the two said is beneficial for both the producer and the consumer.
“It’s a cross-pollinated web between family, community, and food,” said Young, who is now the local coordinator for the Midcoast branch and the marketing director for FarmDrop as a whole.
The market has had pickup locations across the state for several years and is now relaunching regionally with local coordinator teams, according to FarmDrop CEO Hannah Semler. Locations have been added in Damariscotta and Waldoboro, joining a seasonal Wiscasset site. The online market offers vegetables, bread, meat, dairy products, spices, and more, varying by pickup location.
Nineteen sellers are currently available for Damariscotta pickup beginning Saturday, March 16, and 29 sellers are available in Waldoboro, where pickups opened last month. Applications are open for new sellers.
FarmDrop’s model is different from a traditional community-supported agriculture program, or CSA, where members receive a weekly selection determined by the farmer for the length of a season. FarmDrop customers select their own items week by week, like ordering online from the grocery store, without a repeated commitment.
Semler also hopes to develop small-scale wholesale options for local stores and restaurants.
Being able to focus on farming instead of business strategy, marketing, and logistics takes away stress and makes the endeavor more accessible, according to Young.
“As a producer, it’s allowing me to expand my business while spending time with my family,” she said. “It’s how and where I want to sell.”
For DeGeer, it allows him to reach wholesale accounts at a retail price while keeping his relationships with customers and saving time and money through the collaborative delivery.
Those involved with FarmDrop locally have a shared vision of “mixing convenience and community,” according to Young. Through the process, she said she has realized how many food producers are active in the area.
She signed up for FarmDrop’s initial Wiscasset hub as an outlet and wondered about expanding it around the time DeGeer and his business partners purchased Fernald’s Country Store earlier this year with plans to include a small food market alongside the sandwich counter.
According to DeGeer, the Fernald’s team doesn’t have the space, money, or staff to manage a full retail market, but hosting FarmDrop pickup is the right balance.
“We hope we can support the distribution logistics at the core of what small producers struggle with,” said DeGeer.
Producers participate in the service regionally or through FarmDrop’s state networks, depending on the market they wish to reach. They pay 10% of sales to FarmDrop, which goes to technology and marketing. Producers are responsible for fulfilling and packing orders before distribution.
“It’s really got to be the community’s decision to want FarmDrop in their community … that only becomes real if it’s being offered by people in the community,” Semler said.
So far, FarmDrop “has been sustained, but not nurtured” in the Midcoast, according to Semler, something they hope to change in part through adding local leadership. DeGeer said he sees the potential in the model too and intends to direct his wholesale customers through it.
“We’re finding better ways to integrate,” Semler said. “I think it’s going to be really great to see how these efforts develop.”
Longer term, she hopes the market will create solutions for farmers to be resilient and flexible as changes happen in the business world.
“There’s energy around it,” Semler said. “Currently, there’s been a very warm welcome … it feels like it’s going to take off.”
In Damariscotta, orders are open Saturday through Wednesday for Friday pickup from 2-5 p.m. at Fernald’s Country Store. Waldoboro shoppers have the same order window for pickup at East Forty Farm and Dairy from 3-6 p.m. Fridays. FarmDrop plans a return to its Wiscasset pickups at the Maine Tasting Center later in the year.
For more information, find Midcoast FarmDrop on Facebook or Instagram, email midcoast@farmdrop.us, or go to farmdrop.us.
