The Social Business

Grow it - and they might not come

It's always interesting to confront people with their worst nightmare early on a Saturday morning.  

I ran a marketing workshop on Saturday on behalf of the Soil Association, for a group of Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) projects.  I'm a big fan of the CSA approach - the main idea being that local people share some of the risk with the grower by paying up front, in return for a regular share of the harvest over that year.  I was a member of a CSA at Swillington Farm - and they've also recently set up a CSA arrangement (to rear a pig) with Salvo's -  a local Italian restaurant which you may recently have seen on Gordon Ramsey's F Word.  There are plenty more businesses which have adopted the model - including a Community Supported Bakery which I wrote about here.

The marketing workshop was themed around the title - Grow it - and they might not come.  This in turn was inspired by the Kevin Costner film Field of Dreams - in which rookie farmer Ray Kinsella hears a voice which tells him to build a baseball pitch in his field.  The voice tells him "If you build it, he will come" - and sure enough the ghost of Shoeless Joe Jackson and seven other Chicago White Sox players turn up to play on his field.

As you can imagine people thought Ray was nuts.  People who want to set up CSAs sometimes meet with a similar response.  Getting people to pay up front to buy veg from you - when all that currently exists is a sketch of your planting plan and a seed catalogue - can be a challenge.  That's where an effective marketing plan can help.

A do-able marketing plan for your CSA

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I talk about marketing as building relationships with customers.  This concept sits well with CSAs.  You need to build relationships if people are to trust that you will grow food for them.  I take people through my step-by-step plan - which requires you to think carefully about your business - and in particular your customers - but doesn't require you to have any formal marketing background.  

During the workshop we split into groups and each group creates a plan - using an innovation which, even if I say so myself, I'm very proud of - upcycled wallpaper - used in place of flipchart paper.  £2 spent in Oxfam has to be better than £10 spent in Staples, surely?

 

Aside from the eco-benefits (which won me early greenie points with my organic audience), I'm a big believer in thinking sideways along a page, rather than down a page.  There is something about a portrait flipchart which makes you anxious - you get to the bottom of a page and you start losing the will to live - because the stuff at the bottom feels weighed down by what's gone before (and you're now kneeling on the floor, writing like a four year old).  You're also wondering whether to squeeze a few more words on - or start a new page.   Whereas, with a roll of Upcycled Wallpaper  Flipchart ^TM you can keep on writing - and keep referring back, drawing lines where there are connections, etc etc.

The risk I take with this workshop is that I spend very little time talking about the things that some people expect me to talk about.  Some people want clear guidance - a top ten of the best ways to market your business - that kind of thing.  I don't believe in that stuff.  As my Iced Tea slide suggests, what works in one place doesn't necessarily work in another.  That's why I talk people through what they need to think about - so that they can then make their best judgement about what it's best to do.  That way, you also start thinking about ways to market your business which don't cost a great deal of money.

My four year old son was a bit confused on Saturday morning, given that I was going to work.  He asked me what I was doing.  I told him I was running a workshop.  

"Is it like Santa's workshop?"  he asked.   

"Son", I said, "Today I will give people a gift greater than any that Santa could give.  A do-able marketing plan."  He looked at me a bit confused, and carried on eating his breakfast.    

I have flour, yeast and water (but no salt). I will survive.

I've just seen the following at my local Tesco:

I defy you not to panic just a little bit when faced with bare shelves in a supermarket.  

It reminded me to blog about a programme I heard on the radio the other day.  The Food Programme focused on bread, and featured a number of small-scale bakers.  I found it really inspiring.  They talked to:

• The Handmade Bakery - a Community Supported Bakery in Slaithwaite, where people buy bread weekly on a subscription basis - similar to the Community Supported Agriculture scheme I've blogged about at Swillington.
• A guy who knocked on his neighbours' doors and asked them if he could bake bread for them.  He now has a nice little business.
• A woman who is using small-scale breadmaking as a way to encourage young people to develop a few entrepreneurial skills.

It's easy to dismiss this kind of thing as self-obsessed middle-class food snobbery, and in some cases I'm sure it is just that.  But there is something quite profound in the desire of increasing numbers of people to take more control of where their food comes from.  It's got something to do with the empty shelves above, or perhaps more importantly, whose shelves they are. 

Who does fairtrade work for most?

I really need fairtrade to work.  There are times that it feels like I need it more than coffee farmers or tea plantation workers.

I know that sounds ridiculous, and it clearly is ridiculous.  But my point is that a belief in what fairtrade means forms an important part of my vision of the world, and my daily struggle to try to make sense of an obscenely unjust society.

I do what I can to make things better, bit by bit, day by day.  I do that by working with social entrepreneurs.  By writing about social business.  And by drinking fairtrade tea, and eating fairtrade chocolate.  Every little helps, I tell myself.

And I more or less handed over my life to fairtrade for seven years, working at a fairtrade shop in Leeds.  That's where I learnt most of what I know about social business.   We went from small basement premises to the high street, doubling our turnover and introducing loads of people in Leeds to fairtrade.  But eventually, we closed, unable to make the sums add up.  

Every year we hosted a fairtrade producer during Fairtrade Fortnight - cocoa farmers from Ghana and Belize, tea plantation workers from Tanzania.  The questions changed as the fairtrade sector expanded.  In the early days the question was "Should I buy my Cafedirect from the supermarket or from Trade for Change?"  In later years the question became "Should I buy Traidcraft's [fairtrade product of choice] or the [Pick Your Own Big Multinational's] equivalent product?  The debate would develop, and would inevitably focus on whether we should spend our money with the big multinational, and whether they should have the Fairtrade Mark in the first place.

Generally, the producers were pretty bemused by these arguments.  Their message was consistent and clear - just sell more of our stuff.  If a big multinational was to approach them with an offer to buy tonnes more of their cocoa on fairtrade terms, then there will only be one answer.  And it's an answer that we'd no doubt give ourselves if we were in the same position.

Lots of people aren't happy about the Fairtrade Foundation's decision to award Nestle the Fairtrade Mark for Kit Kats (the four finger ones, and only in the UK and Ireland).  Lots of the concern centres on Nestle as a business -  and understandably so - they're probably the most boycotted business in the world.  You can read an excellent argument against the decision here.

I'll be honest, I don't like Nestle.  Nor am I a natural supporter of big multinational companies.  But I don't believe that monday was a black day for fairtrade, as Joe puts it in the piece I've linked to above.  I think the Fairtrade Foundation have done the right thing.  As uncomfortable as it makes me feel, I think it's progress if Nestle start buying fairtrade cocoa and sugar for four finger Kit Kats.  Only time will tell whether this turns out to be the beginning or the end of their commitment to fairtrade cocoa.  I accept that their history with their Partners Blend coffee suggests that we shouldn't hold our breath.

But fundamentally I believe that one of the great successes of the fairtrade movement is that it has engaged big businesses, helping some of them, some of the time, to trade in a a more just way.  And I think it gives us opportunities to point out just how ridiculous it is that companies like Nestle continue to buy the majority of their cocoa on non-fairtrade terms.  So for me it's progress, uncomfortable progress, but definitely progress.  

Every farmer needs good neighbours

It was great to see Gip from Salvo's winning on the F Word last night in their neighbourhood restaurants competition.  

I went to Salvo's a few weeks ago for their zero food miles menu.  They had a special menu for three days in their salumeria, with all the produce grown and reared in Leeds.  We really enjoyed it - and at £19.50 for a six course menu it was great value too.

I'd gone along because I know the people who run Swillington Organic Farm - and they'd provided much of the produce for the menu.  I went back again last Friday to interview Gip about how it went.  I took my flip camcorder but unfortunately I didn't get him in shot - he moved when we started talking and, still being a bit new to this stuff, I didn't realise - so you can only see half his head.  So I'll just have to tell you what he said instead.

Basically he was really pleased with how it went - and customers loved it - they were sold out each night.  He's keen to do more - with the next step being to buy a pig on a Community Supported Agriculture basis - where you pay up front to share a bit of the risk with the farmer.  You can imagine that there'll be plenty of scope for publicising this arrangement with Salvo's customers, which is great for the farm.

I'm really keen on this kind of thing - where local businesses get together and work with each other.  I wrote a while back about how I was feeling a bit unenthusiastic about a lot of the funded local food projects that I'd heard about at a conference.  They were great - but so many of them relied on funding - which won't be around for ever.  If you can get businesses trading locally with each other because it makes sense - and because it fits with who they are - in this case a neighbourhood restaurant - then that's got a much better chance of being sustainable and making a big difference long term.  

Food security and Community Supported Agriculture

Here's an interview I did recently with Kirstin Glendinning from Swillington Organic Farm, about their Community Supported Agriculture Scheme.  Kirstin also works for the Soil Association, supporting the development of other CSA's.

CSA is interesting in the context of yesterday's UK Food Security Assessment.   It's pretty clear that we need to produce food in ways that is less reliant on fossil fuels.  Community Supported Agriculture schemes, which by their nature are usually local, and often look to produce food in less intensive ways, can be an important part of that future.  

The Swillington CSA is popular but there are still shares available - if you want to know more you can contact them.  They also have a pig and chicken CSA, run in association with Headingley Development Trust.  

The benefits of organic food production

The Food Standards Agency yesterday published some research which claimed that organic food offers no extra nutritional benefits when compared with conventionally produced food. 

Their aim, they suggest, is to enable consumers to make "an informed choice".

Have these researchers been living in a cave, with nothing to sustain them other than a few berries and nuts?  I don't think that the majority of people who eat organic food think that it's going to make them healthier.  They don't eat organic broccoli thinking that its stuffed full of nutrients that just aren't there in non-organic brocolli.

They eat it, I think, because they think that farming non-intensively, without routine use of pesticides, is a better way to produce food - better for us (in a wider health and wellbeing sense), better for wildlife, better for the long-term health of the planet.  And it's not just about not using pesticides - it's often about a whole different approach to linking consumers, farmers and food.

You can read the Soil Association's response to the research here.  

I thought I'd pop down to Swillington Organic Farm to see what they thought of the research.  There were plenty of customers there who've clearly made up their own mind, and who frankly don't need second-rate FSA research to help them to make an informed choice.  Here's what the Farm's Organic Apprentice thinks the benefits are of the way they farm at Swillington:

More of what I want

I've just been out for an hour on my bike.  I have a nice little circular route which I ride regularly, with a few good hills and some nice greenery.  I'm trying to cycle more at the moment for a few reasons.  

One is to get fit and lose weight (having never had to worry about that kind of thing I've noticed the beginnings of middle-age expansion recently).  Another is to be a bit more eco - if I'm fitter I'm more likely to use the car less.  And the final one is that I'm pretty demotivated by a lot of what I do at the moment - so an hour's bike ride tricks my brain into stimulus (and is better than sitting at my desk looking at my Google stats).

There's a farm shop half way round my bike ride, so I often stop there to buy a bit of veg.  They're really friendly and have some tasty veg.  Obviously now is prime time for tasty summer produce:

(I like the way the woman is staring at me, probably thinking I'm some kind of freak)

I then continue through Fulneck and then down into the centre of Pudsey.  I stopped at the lights and noticed the following:

I'm in prime position to win £100 for the most debated post of the month in the Bloggers Circle.  That post praised supermarkets for their efforts to reduce plastic bag use.  So, just to show I'm not going soft, here's a post having a go at a supermarket.  The fact that they call their store Local just shows how messed up our food and shopping cultures are.  And no, Sainsburys, your store isn't bulging with all the things I want.  I don't want onions from New Zealand, or green beans from Zambia.  I want cauliflowers from Pudsey please.

Eggs for breakfast

One of the things I'm challenging myself on as a result of getting involved in the climate change group is my love of clever bits of technology.  My latest purchase - as you may have guessed from the videos that are starting to appear on the blog - is a small video camera.  It's great - and came highly recommended by the Social Reporter, David Wilcox.  I like it because it's small and unobtrusive - the size of a mobile phone -  and doesn't really get in the way of normal conversations.

I need to work on my technique a bit (mainly to nod in encouragement instead of muttering away constantly in the background) but I like it as a way of getting messages across.

I was at Swillington Organic Farm yesterday doing a few short videos.  Our idea is to give people a real insight into what it's like behind the scenes at the farm.  Here's our first film - about their free-range laying hens.  And if you know anything about free range, you'll know there's free range and there's really free range.  I think you'll see from the film that Swillington's hens have all the room a hen could wish for.

The Innocent Way

Just back from a talk by Richard Reed, one of the three guys who set up innocent drinks.  

I like innocent, although if I'm honest, not quite as much as I used to.  A couple of years ago you could probably have called me a disciple, such was my loyalty to their brand.  I didn't buy their smoothies so often, but I was a big fan of the way they wrote about themselves.  I've written about it before so won't go on.

I still like them, and it was a good talk.  I like the way they try to do business, their commitment to doing the right thing ethically and environmentally, and the cheeky chat on their bottles.  I like the way they really try hard to live their values - so that they're not just words on a wall.  I was particularly interested this evening to hear how they tried to work out what it would mean to stick to their values whilst making 25 people redundant - as they had to last year.

But I'm aware that I'm not so in love with them as I once was.  There's been the odd label - and the odd newsletter story - that's started to feel a bit formulaic.  I've noticed it with other similar brands too - I love howies clothes, but equally their we'd all rather be surfing chat on their labels is starting to grate.  

Getting your tone of voice right is tough.  I find it easy on the blog, but harder in my newsletter.  Perhaps because the newsletter is  partly about selling - come to this workshop, read this blog post - I find it harder to get the tone right.  It must be so much harder as a business expands.  

The thing I liked the most was his response to the question I'd wanted to ask - how you stay true to your values as you grow.  He reckons that they're more innocent-like than they've ever been - because they now have to work hard at making the values mean something.  When they were small, it just happened.  Now they have to work at it.  Food for thought for all of us who talk about how values matter in a business.  

Cadbury's Dairy Milk and Fairtrade

Cadbury's Dairy Milk has long been a secret pleasure of mine.  If I'm out and about and need a quick sugar hit, and there's nothing vaguely ethical to be had, then Dairy Milk tends to be my choice.  Francis's stash of chocolate buttons never seems to last that long either.

So it's interesting to read that within a few months all Dairy Milk sold in the UK will contain Fairtrade-certified cocoa - including some from the Kuapa Kokoo co-op which part-owns Divine Chocolate.  

Apparently Divine aren't worried about the move - even though their chocolate - unlike most Fairtrade chocolate  which is aimed at the premium market - competes directly with Dairy Milk.  They reckon that their customers will remain loyal - and that there'll be benefits for the whole fairtrade market from such a high-profile company getting in on the act.

It's an interesting one.  I remember endless debates at the fairtrade shop where I once worked about the mainstreaming of fair trade.  Is it progress if Nestle and the rest certify some of their range Fairtrade?  With caveats, I think it is.  I remember the question being asked at a public event we ran, with a tea farmer from Uganda.  His answer was simple - please do what you can to expand the market, so that we can sell more tea.  Our concerns about the motivations of the big businesses should perhaps be of secondary importance.

It'll be interesting to see the impact of Cadbury's move on Divine.  I think they're a great business so I hope they continue to do well.  I'm sure they'll respond entrepreneurially - recognising the need for a niche player to continually innovate, particularly when a big beast steps on their toes.  

I'm sure that hardcore fair trade buyers will remain loyal - but the whole point of Divine has been to reach the mass market - supermarkets, garages, sandwich bars and the like.  Cadbury would like some of that market back thank you very much.  It's up to Divine to raise their game once more.