Farm stands revived as more buy directly from fields

BURLINGTON, Vt. — When Cosimo Brigante's father died in 1956, his mother was left to raise seven children on their Colchester farm.

All the kids pitched in, Brigante, 79, recalled; farm produce sales to stores and through their farm stand supported the family through a tough time.

Brigante and two of his brothers, John and Pete, went on to run the business for 35 years with the help of their wives. Their well-known local farm stand was especially known for pick-your-own strawberries, tomatoes and sweet corn, he said with pride.

"I was born here and it's all I've done all my life," Brigante said.

A lot has changed over the course of Brigante's life, including the local food scene.

Farm stands were once the only way for people to buy locally grown vegetables and fruits direct from the farmer. Neighbors bought from neighbors to fill in what they didn't grow in their own gardens.

Today, farm stands and on-farm markets have been joined by an abundance of other choices from farmers markets to community-supported agriculture (CSA) shares from farms in which a member pays upfront before the season starts for a weekly "share" of the farm's harvest.

The good news, says Shawn Lavigne, farm manager for Paul Mazza's with farm stand locations in Colchester and Essex, is that "people are craving local and fresh and more people are getting it direct than ever before."

The challenge for the traditional farm stand has been keeping up with all the other options consumers now have.

Loyal customers

Cosimo Brigante still grows some produce and sells it to the Shelburne Supermarket, but about seven years ago, the brothers shut down their farm stand. "The stand is still there but the doors are closed," Brigante said.

Happily for locals, there is still a Brigante's farm stand just down the road, thanks to Cosimo Brigante's nephew and John Brigante's son, Dean.

Like his uncle, Dean Brigante says strawberries, corn and tomatoes lead the list of customer favorites although he grows a diverse variety of vegetables and has added pick-your-own flowers. He also brings in a few non-Vermont-grown bestsellers like peaches and plums.

At 48, Dean Brigante has been involved for the business for close to 20 years following a brief off-farm stint in manufacturing. His mother, Velma, passed away last year but his dad, now 77, still helps out.

He says that the Brigantes have a "pretty loyal" set of regular customers who come back year after year. "I appreciate them coming," he said. "They could go anywhere."

Variety and family

Adams Farm Market in Williston grew, literally, out of a small orchard the Adams family opened for pick-your-own in 1980. John Adams, now 68, worked for many years at IBM as a computer programmer, but he's not the retiring type.

The family expanded their own small on-orchard produce stand to a farm market in 1994. Today, John and his wife Peggy work with their daughter, Kim Antonioli, and son, Scott Adams, serving 200 to 300 customers on a busy day. Their teenage grandkids pitch in, too, as part of a team of 20 full-time and part-time employees. "Most customers know us," Adams said.

When they first opened, "we were the only game in town," John Adams reflected recently, standing in the family's 3,000-square-foot building amid glowing tomatoes, bunches of fat scallions, and bushel baskets overflowing with peppers, cucumbers and zucchinis.

Their first competition though, was not other local farms, Adams said, but the big supermarket chains who moved into Williston. The Adams stopped bringing in early-season, out-of-state produce and expanded their greenhouse business (hanging baskets, greenhouse tomatoes and cucumbers) and diversity of Vermont produce and specialty products throughout their season. They open in late April with hanging baskets and locally foraged fiddleheads and close Christmas Eve after a busy holiday rush selling Vermont turkeys and all the fixings, pies and Christmas trees from Hardwick.

Most of the produce they sell is grown in Vermont, a significant portion from their own two production acres viewable from the market's parking lot, as well as from another dozen or so farms listed on a blackboard on the wall. All Vermont-grown produce boasts green labels indicating it is native-grown.

"I'd say we're somewhere between a farmers market and a farm market," Adams said. "We try to carry a full line, not on the exotic side, on the basic side," he said, noting that they work to keep prices competitive and also offer what they call a Produce Pass, which costs $30 for the season ($25 if bought before Mother's Day) and then earns 20 percent off all produce purchases. Adams sold 362 passes this year, up from 295 last year.

Farm fun and value

Other longtime farm stands in the area have tried discount cards similar to Adams, with mixed results, and have found different strategies more successful.

At Sam Mazza's in Colchester, the fifth generation is now involved in the business, which has grown local vegetables and fruits for the wholesale market since 1970 and started its own retail operation in a back room in 1989.

Both the wholesale and farm stand business are solid, said Laurie Mazza, Sam's eldest daughter who works alongside two of her sisters and her husband. But, she added, "all these farmers markets and CSAs becoming so popular, it does seem to get into our customer base."

Sam Mazza's emphasizes its on-site bakery where two full-time bakers make fresh breads, rolls, pies, cookies and cider doughnuts year-round. They also offer a pay-ahead discount card, which gives customers a $275 value to spend for payment of $250. It can be used on anything offered in their store.

Laurie Mazza said seasonal events work well for them to both generate sales and remind people of the diversity they offer. They kick off with their Strawberry Festival, a corn maze opens Aug. 30, and they hold a Great Pumpkin weigh-in as well as a two-weekend harvest festival in October. "It seems like we're moving more and more towards entertainment to bring people out here," she said.