The Berry DisPatch

Newsletter of the Wisconsin Berry Growers Association

April, 2002

Create a Mini-Festival Every Weekend

This article is reprinted with permission from the 2002 NABGA Conference Proceedings.

Doug Patterson

Patterson Farm Inc.

Patterson Farm, Inc. began growing strawberries in the 1970’s. We were predominantly PYO in the early years growing 6 to 8 acres per year. In the late 70’s and early 80’s, it was not uncommon to see 100 or more cars in our fields at one time with a field full of pickers. We would have to close some days in the middle of the season with the dreaded “Sorry closed for ripening” signs posted at the entrance. By the late 80’s and early 90’s, the crowds were gone, as most people had no time or desire to pick their own strawberries any more. More and more berries were sold already picked and wholesale. We began to discuss ideas to bring the people back to the fields to pick and buy already picked strawberries. Many brainstorming sessions occurred as we thought of ways to revitalize this market. We developed the following plan: 1) Start tours to educate and advertise 2) Give people a destination for their families to enjoy 3) Listen, adapt and grow to satisfy customers.

Tours helped us evolve into festivals. We started tours in 1994 with a speech to the children and letting them pick a pint of strawberries for $1. This past year, we gave the children a group picture, coloring book, speech and slideshow, a visit to the petting zoo, planting of seeds, hayride and a pint of strawberries for $5. The tours got us into festivals because parents would ask us what is available for the weekends.

We started out with the grand idea to have one large festival the weekend after Mother’s Day, as, historically, this was our slowest weekend. We planned arts and crafts, car shows, antique tractors, pony rides, moonwalks,

games, recipe contests, food, ice cream, lemonade, hayrides, barn dance, et., all for one day. We did this for three years and found it to be way too time consuming and hard on our work force. We hired everyone we knew for 2 days. We even hired a local FFA to park cars. Also, we began to have customers come on other weekends from an hour or more away, want to know “where is the food” or “where is the ice cream”.

So this is how we got to mini festival weekends. We offer hayrides, petting zoo, food & drinks, arts and crafts, face painting and games; pony rides and moonwalks every weekend. This takes a core of people, but not too many to overload our resources. Old-fashioned ice cream, made by a local church group, is a big hit and will be added every weekend next year. The food is prepared and served by local church groups is rotated throughout the month of May. (We are located a few miles from the nearest fast food restaurants.) Parking and traffic flow has been thought out and designated by signs to eliminate extra help. Of course, we have many strawberries, t-shirts, hats, preserves and spring bedding plants for the festival-goers to purchase. We charge $1 for the moonwalk and hayride. Pony rides are $3 for about a 5-minute ride. Again, we are out to sell strawberries and plants to make money. All the other I s just to pay the cost and to get people out here.

Things to plan for:

· Parking/traffic flow

· Workers

· Displays of products

· Sanitation (sinks & toilets)

· Listen to customer (do more of what they like)