A Few Announcements

Our market keeps growing at an astounding rate, as people become more aware of the importance of eating local foods. I’ve resisted such growth over the last few years, but the stars have aligned to bring together more growers and more households so here we are. Many businesses consider 20% growth in a year to be huge, but we’re now seeing that each week. It used to be Thursday afternoons were when I got my reading done, but no more! To cope with that, we’re making a few changes.

First, we’re extending our hours to 8pm. This will give you more time to come by, and maybe thin the line out a little bit. We can’t open any earlier, so the new hours are 4:30pm to 8pm.

Second, we’re looking for a couple “volunteers” to help us fill orders. These people should be adults or older teens and should be present from 4pm until 8pm (though we could let you go earlier). We’d prefer people who can make it each week over one-time volunteers, as it takes time to learn what everything is, even with labels on them. In return for your help, we’ll credit you for $50 of produce each week. If you’re interested in this trade, please let me know. We can use you as early as next week.

Third, we had an unacceptable amount of items we shorted you yesterday. We’ll try harder to make sure you leave with everything we have for you, but you may also want to go through your invoice before you leave to be sure. I’ve credited everyone I know for sure we shorted yesterday, but we had a number of unlabeled items left over. If you were missing any of these, let me know and I’ll refund your account:

Dry feta, Feta in brine, ground beef, eggs, flower bouquet, and a Persian Shield bedding plant.

Hopefully these measures will help you get in and out of the store more quickly and help us keep our sanity. We’ll continue to adjust as needed!

Also, even though the overall rate is low, the incidence of no-shows has increased of late. I can sometimes make arrangements to get you your produce on Friday, but not always. The Thursday pickup is really the only guaranteed time we can have your orders for you. We’ve already paid the growers for your orders by the time we open our doors, and it only takes a couple large orders to wipe out the amount the growers let us keep to cover our gas, time, and other expenses. Because of that, we have a strict policy of charging you for orders placed but not picked up. You all have been really good about honoring that, but I wanted to spell it out for all the new folks that might have missed that on the website.

And one last thing… we really appreciate Gosford Wine allowing us to completely take over their store, front and back, for four hours. Having pickups there is so much nicer for everyone than the old days of meeting in a parking lot in the hot sun. Please keep them in mind when looking for wine for yourselves or others—there’s no better place in town to get quality wine.

From myself and all of Locally Grown’s 26 suppliers, thank you for all of your support!