Great Food Co-op
A New Business Model in a Famous Farmer's Market
Every visitor to Charleston, SC finds out pretty quickly that one of the many fun things to do here is to visit the Farmer's Market in Marion Sq. Park. Every Saturday, April through December, natives and tourists alike flock to what the New York Times named the #5 top Farmer's Market in the USA.
The first thing you notice as you enter a well laid out maze of tents and stands is that people are having fun. Lots of it. All the character and variety that makes Charleston great comes alive with colorful crafts and arts and wonderful foods.
"I'm here every week, ' says Ashley Smalls, a Charleston native. " I do as much of my shopping here as I can, and I have long time friends who run successful stands here with stuff you'd have a hard time finding anywhere else. It's not just the green fresh food movement, though that's important. It's the people, the crazy characters, the laughs and the fun."
It's a typically beautiful Charleston seaside day, as the sun peeks through the oak trees lining the park. Turn a few corners and you'll see quite a few people around one particular stand. Behind it is a large, older man with a face that could light up the whole park. He really seems to be enjoying mixing it up with the people, and they enjoy him.
"How ya doooinn' ", he says in a West Virginia drawl. "Ya want to taste somethin' good?" Who can says no to 250 pounds of smiling joy. Taste a chocolate covered cherry. Yum. Then a fresh dried cranberry. More yum. Look up and see a sign with a Victorian drawing of a curly haired girl holding cherries with one simple word underneath. "Sweet." Exactly.
I'm Lee Lambert, and I'm happy to meet to you," He shakes hands with an unusually strong grip. On it goes through the day, long time customers, tourists taking home Southern fare including pecan, cashew, almond crunch, cherry cider, chocolate covered pomegranates, pickled olives, relishes, jams, jellies, etc.
Lee's business is called Great Food Co-Op, and it's been one of the mainstays of the Marion Park Farmer's Market for 10 years. Also, he has long attended the Charleston, Mt. Pleasant, Kiawah, Daniel Island Farmer's Markets and his daughter took the business this past summer to Hastings on Hudson, NY (featured on the Today Show), Highland Falls, NY and Bethel Woods at the site of the Woodstock Festival in Bethel, NY.
"Farmer's Markets have gone from being a place to get a good deal on food and stuff to become a central part of American life. Every little town is creating one. They are an important part of every community, a new meeting place for neighbors and friends," says Lee.
So how did he come to starting his business? " I started in banking and finance, says Lee. "It's always been about people for me, helping people. I became an Executive VP in a major bank by watching out for folks, getting to know them, being at the forefront of the credit control business. If you help someone get out of trouble, rather than harass 'em into paying, they're your customer for life.
"Well it got to be that I was one of 4 EVPs heading up 4 divisions - Banking, Credit Cards, Insurance and Auto discount. And there was one VP for every bank branch. But with consolidation, it became one VP for every 15 branches, then 25 branches, then 145 branches!
"I was no longer in touch with the customer, and it was not a growth position, it was a declining position. "So I said, sayonara folks, I'm gonna' do my own thing. And here I am."
So Lee is back with the people in a big way. But while he and his customers are having fun, he's using his talents to build a new business model.
Lee explains. " The Farmer's Market is a great way to learn and grow a business to greater heights. Here you get to test products out, and to be one on one with your customers. You experience how they relate to the product, which ones they keep coming back for. You find products that are healthy, have good value and top quality and run with them."
And this is the key to Great Food Co-op.
"We are first and foremost a Cooperative," says Lambert. "I have sought out the best of the best to build my business with. I went up to Traverse City, Michigan to work with the greatest growers, and producers of the products related to cherries and got the top fresh dried cherries in the country, no chemicals or preservatives. I partnered here in Charleston with Stephen Palmer Dowdney, a Master Canner who wrote the book PUTTIN UP which is the top selling book on canning on Amazon. And we've got new people coming on board all the time. Just yesterday we agreed to partner with a woman who makes amazing salad dressings, wait until you taste them."
But Great Food Co-op goes even further. Lambert says a good company has to be based on a philosophy, and the simpler the better.
"We want to help a housewife in a kitchen or somebody with a great idea get started. Let's say someone has a family recipe cookie that is out of this world. Now this person may not have the slightest idea of how to turn that cookie into a business. That's where we come in. She joins the Co-op. We handle setting up all the logistics, licenses, and requirements to make it real. You've got to make your food in a commercial kitchen, which costs around $30,000. So we set her up in one that already exists that she can co-op with or rent.
"And the big thing is that the Farmer's market is just the beginning. We want to take all our partners worldwide. We just closed a deal for a continuing order that starts with 20,000 pounds of cranberries being shipped to Czechoslovakia. We're importing fabulous coffee beans in 40,000 pound containers.
"What we're doing is building a global brand."
So next time you walk in a Farmer's Market, think big. Local is the new global. And expect to see the Victorian lady with her "Sweet" message in a big way one day soon.
"Just so long as we never lose touch with the customer, says Lee. "It always comes back to standing behind a counter and providing something you know is of value to folks just like yourself."
-Charleston, SC January 20, 2010
