Some San Joaquin Valley small farmers, food makers overwhelmed with consumer demand
At a time when farmers are losing customers because of the crackdown related to the coronavirus pandemic, some San Joaquin Valley food makers are seeing a boost in business as people search for alternatives to the grocery store.
From a drive-thru egg ranch to a homemade bread maker, small-scale producers have been flooded with new customers wanting convenience and fresh, quality products.
These days, buying groceries has changed dramatically. The highly contagious and potentially deadly coronavirus has spread nationwide. Health experts and government officials have ordered most people to stay home and only go out when absolutely necessary.
Restaurants, food service, and schools have shutdown or are operating on a limited basis. With fewer people eating out, farmers who supplied those restaurants are having a hard time finding new markets.
But not everyone is struggling.
Located on 5 acres on the outskirts of southeast Clovis, Daddino’s Egg Ranch is a humble operation. It’s been in the family for three generations and has weathered tough times over the years. No one, however, was prepared for what happened a month ago when people began panic buying, fearing they wouldn’t be able to leave their homes.
Grocery stores quickly ran out of certain items, like toilet paper, bottled water, milk, bread and eggs.
When word got out Daddinos had eggs, they were overwhelmed. At the peak of the panic, the tiny farm store at 3706 N Thompson Ave. was serving 500 customers a day. Before COVID-19, a good day meant selling to 80 customers.
Lola Daddino, who lives on the ranch with her husband Brent and their children, recalls looking out her window one morning and seeing a line of cars with customers waiting to buy eggs.
“I couldn’t believe it, I kept saying to myself, ‘what is happening?,’” she said. “I had never seen that many people here.”
The Daddinos suddenly realized they needed a more convenient way to sell their eggs. The farm store can only handle about 15 people at a time. So at Lola Daddino’s urging they created a drive-thru using some traffic cones and chalkboard signs. And it worked.
These days, the flood of customers has leveled off to between 150 to 200 a day, but that’s still double their normal average. The strong demand has caused the ranch to supplement their supply of eggs with eggs from other producers. The nearly 70-year-old ranch had as many as 20,000 birds at one time, but now its flock has dwindled to 3,000 chickens.
Urban encroachment, increased costs and competition have all impacted the ranch over the years. The family has talked about whether it makes sense to still farm in what is becoming a residential area.
But with a new influx of customers, the talk about moving has become less urgent.
“We have people who are driving three hours to buy their eggs from us,” said Lola Daddino. “And I have people who tell me they live down the street and have never been here before.”
Daddino’s sells eggs, along with live and slaughtered poultry. A few families have also bought hens in hopes of getting their own eggs.
“I think there is a newfound awareness out there and not just about what Daddinos does but other farmers too,” she said.
Small farm advisor Ruth Dahlquist-Willard sees the potential of more consumers making long lasting connections with small farmers and other food producers that they may not have been familiar with before the pandemic.
She said people not only want quality, but they also appreciate making it easier to buy, including pick up or delivery.
“If people are trying something new from a local business and they like it, they are going to keep going back to it,” said Dahlquist-Willard, a small farms and specialty crops farm advisor for the University of California Cooperative Extension. “And I hope we see some of those patterns emerging from all of this.”
California’s milk processors couldn’t keep up with the demand during the early weeks of Gov. Gavin Newsom’s shelter-in-place orders. People were buying so much milk that grocery stores had to limit how much you could buy.
Local dairy producers, including Rosa Brothers Dairy in Tulare, stepped in to provide more milk to their retail customers. The family run business sells its milk in glass bottles. The creamery more than doubled its production and operated extra shifts and extra routes.
“We tried to keep the grocery stores from running out of milk,” said Noel Rosa, co-owner of the dairy. “We did everything we could and it helped.”
Rosa said that while milk sales overall have returned somewhat back to normal, his small creamery has continued to see a demand for its milk.
“When people have the opportunity to try our milk, they like and they keep coming back,” Rosa said. “We have definitely seen an uptick.”
Also gaining new customers is Ashley Machado of Winton in Merced County. She along with her husband Manny operate Care and V Farms. They raise calves, pigs, and chickens and grow almonds and pumpkins.
Ashley Machado is also a baker with a growing reputation for her breads: honey wheat, sourdough and a white sandwich loaf. She started the business in November and was cranking out about 30 loaves a week for customers in the Turlock and Atwater areas. She also drops off orders at Happy House, a home and gift store in Fresno on the northwest corner of Palm and Bullard avenues.
The store’s owner Marielle Parrish, has temporarily closed the store during the pandemic, but plans to reopen and continue to be drop off spot for Machado’s bread.
“It is the best bread I have ever had,” Parrish said.
Like others, Machado was shocked at how many customers she picked up in the last several weeks, and nearly all of it by word of mouth and social media.
“The orders just kept coming in and my biggest worry was being able to keep up,” Machado said. “I didn’t want to turn anyone away.”
She quickly ramped up her production from 30 loaves a week to 75 and the orders keep coming.
“At this point, I’ve had to tell people, I can’t fill their order this week,” she said.
Machaco believes people want to avoid going to the grocery store as much as possible, so they are increasingly relying on food makers like her for their food.
She also recently started selling sourdough starter for the more ambitious bakers. In two months, she has filled more than 200 orders.
Machado knows that life will return back to normal someday soon and for that she is grateful. She’s also hopeful many of her new customers will stick with her.
“What I am hoping is that people will see that a local product is just as good, if not better than what they can find in the grocery store,” Machado said. “And I think they will.”
This story was originally published April 17, 2020 at 5:00 AM.
