Swanton Berry Farm

Jim believes that Swanton has reached the right size now and is satisfied with its profitability. He has no plans to grow. But he does see room for improvements in operations and for better performance by his managers and staff. Here’s what’s topping his to-do list:

• Additional Environmental Improvements: He would like to improve Swanton’s environmental performance. Jim is already tracking and reducing fossil fuel and water use.
  
  
• Employee Rewards: He recently created an employee satisfaction survey, and is gradually improving the rewards (financial, security, spiritual) that each receives for his or her work.

Jim believes that operations like Swanton Berry Farm have opened the way for all kinds of other organic farmers to follow in his footsteps, but concedes that the world is very different now than 25 years ago. When he got started, there was almost no competition for organic foods. Today that market has matured, and it’s very important for new entrants to meet extremely high standards of quality on a consistent basis. Someone starting up now needs to be able to hit the ground running. Whole Foods Market won’t automatically buy from them. Upstarts instead need to focus on farmers markets in out of the way places, or on specialized restaurants, or on stores that have not yet entered the organic market. “This is really hard work,” says Jim, “and this skill set is really unusual. It explains why a lot of people won’t make it on their own.”

Jim sees more opportunity for new entrants with a better infrastructure for local food distribution. For example, it might be possible to create a honeycomb of thousands of new local retail food outlets, buying high quality food for new local food processers, who in turn buy fresh food from new farmers. Accomplishing this requires new models of collaboration. More and better commercial kitchens are needed for new processors to get started. So are agricultural parks where aspiring farmers can lease five acres and rent a tractor.

Ultimately, Jim believes that his passion is responsible for much of Swanton Berry Farm’s success: “If you can make ends meet financially and do something you really believe in, then a lot of people would like to be able to do that.” But the irony isn’t lost on Jim regarding where he does business. “It is culturally a little bit weird to be next door to the Silicon Valley and its get rich quick model. To be doing okay by going slow and living right next door, it’s hard to watch sometimes. But I can’t complain too much about the Silicon Valley gazillionares—because they are buying my strawberries!”