Field Notes: Fiery Ginger Farm Hosts Raley’s
May 11th, 2021
Read time: 3 minutes
About Our Market Access Field Notes…
In April, KTA announced our new body of work related to increasing farmer access and power in the marketplace. This new programming, part of what we refer to as our Ecosystem Building work, expands on our core business advising and seeks to reimagine KTA’s role in rebuilding the market landscape in a way that serves the farmer and rancher clients we advise. This post is the first in a series authored by our previous Value Chain Manager (currently Owner & CEO of SupplyChange) H Nieto-Friga highlighting our on-the-ground efforts to deepen sales relationships and develop new supply chains between KTA clients and regional procurement partners. We invite you to also connect with parts two and three of this series.
Steamy, late spring heat was already rising off of the lettuce beds at Fiery Ginger Farm in West Sacramento as our two groups gathered for an early morning talk and tour. Gathered from Kitchen Table Advisors were Farm Business Advisor Federica Beatrice and Regional Director Thomas Nelson as well as Partnership Manager Noelle Fogg Elibol and myself. Joining us were corporate procurement, community engagement and store leaders from Raley’s, a well-established grocery chain headquartered in Sacramento.
Fiery Ginger Farm
A small urban farm offering sustainably grown food and hands-on educational experiences to their communities.
One of the main questions we get about our new market access programming is: what does it look like in practice? In general, we seek to build relationships with partners like Raley’s who are looking to deepen their commitment to regional farmers and ranchers, while supporting KTA producers who may not have much experience working with larger buyers and could benefit from some added facilitation. As we walked around Fiery Ginger’s thriving, diversified, and spectacularly intensive 2-acre farm -- stopping briefly to admire the farm’s shaggy-bearded goats -- both teams were able to dive into the possibilities of working together more closely.
Hope and Shayne, Fiery Ginger’s farmer co-founders, spoke passionately about their farm’s history and the ways they’ve sold their lettuces, radishes, and other crops to local school districts, food banks, and a few individual Raley’s stores through their uncanny ability to grow food well and connect with community. As we debriefed after the tour over delicious dips and pastries from Pannier -- featuring Fiery Ginger spring onions and carrots -- the Raley’s team imparted their extensive experience in the grocery industry and shared their interest in building relationships with those who supply produce to their shelves.
Through some targeted questions, we were able to understand more about how Raley’s corporate buying staff and individual store produce managers make decisions about their product mix. We were also able to have a great conversation about Raley’s Food for Families program, which uses funds from Raley’s community giving team to purchase farm fresh vegetables and get them directly to food bank partners. Knowing how this program has benefited both families in need and farms like Fiery Ginger, we discussed how we might work together to expand this partnership to other Northern California regions.
These meetings and conversations are foundational to our market access work. By bringing buyers like Raley’s to the table (or right to the farm!), we can learn how they think about their connection to the food system, and all of the nuances of how we can help our farmers meet their sales goals and expand relationships. Better yet, the learnings we gain from a fruitful partnership with a larger grocer like Raley’s become strong tools for replicating this success with other grocery retailers, large and small. The heart of our market access work is just this: building upon one relationship at a time, until we’ve built a network of partners and strategies that reach across our entire KTA ecosystem.
PC: Noelle Fogg Elibol, Federica Beatrice, Thomas Nelson