Fads come and fads fade. A handful of years ago, it seemed everyone and their brother was coming up with some form of a delivery service to get fresh produce delivered to your door. Farmers Market quality delivered right to your door. It was fun! It was convenient! It was creative! Except for that time you got 5 pounds of kale for the 3rd time in 4 weeks and you had to figure out what to do with it this time. I never witnessed it for myself, but I am certain that some kids were sneaking out of the back door for a KFC run or “studying” at their BFF’s place just to get out of eating whatever showed up in the box that week. I exaggerate of course, but you get the picture.
To be fair, the farm box concept still exists all over America. You don’t have to live in New York City to get anything delivered anytime. There are a ton of services out there that will bring food to your door. Some even deliver recipes and spices in exact amounts just to help you prepare that meal. Of course, you pay for services like that and typically they aren’t inexpensive. One area company, however, is taking the entire food delivery concept to a next level.
Silo, as they are called, is an on-line farmers market. They’ve been around for six years. They started up in Beaufort, expanded up the road to Charleston and two months ago moved in to the Savannah market when they took over the operation that had been the Savannah Food Co-Op. “We had been thinking about expanding to Savannah for quite some time.” Says Patrick Kelly, who along with his wife and another couple own Silo. “We had a lot of people telling us we should bring our concept to this area. Having a customer list of about 1,200 already made it a little easier to make the jump.”
The concept is pretty simple. Their ‘store front’ is a website. It’s open from Sunday mornings at 8am until noon on Wednesdays. When I ask him if he waits until 8am on Sundays because that is when Eat It and Like It with Jesse Blanco wraps up on WSAV-TV, he neither confirms nor denies the allegation. Well, that part of our conversation never happened, but it was a clever way to squeeze in a shameless plug of our show.
“Within 5 minutes of our on-line shop closing on Wednesdays an email goes out to all of our farmers.” Patrick tells me. “They bring us what they have and customers come to our warehouse to pick up their orders.” That sounds incredibly efficient if you ask me. “Our farmers love it.” He adds. “They drive to the nearest of our three locations (Beaufort, Charleston and Savannah) and drop off what has been ordered. We then sort it out and get what needs to be delivered to another region to that warehouse. No matter if you are a cheese maker in Charleston or a coffee maker in Coffee Bluff, you take it to them and they get it to where it needs to go. “They (farmers) love it because it keeps them from driving to a Farmer’s Market a couple of hours away and sitting there for five hours only to drive back home with what they haven’t sold.” Patrick says. “They only bring us what has been ordered on-line.”
Now that isn’t at all to say that they will replace the traditional farmers markets. Not at all. Forsyth Farmers Market is doing well, they’ve even developed an app to help them with their growth. What Silo does is makes it easier for more farmers to get involved with ‘virtual’ farmers markets-if you will-without dedicating the manpower and time commitments required to sell their products at those traditional markets.
Patrick tells me they work with about 40 or so farmers and vendors to this point. “Ideally we’d like to get up to 60.” He tells me sometimes they lack as much variety in produce as they would prefer but that is part of the gig. The more farmers they can bring into the fold, the easier that should get. “Take eggs for example” he says. “Right now, when it’s warm out egg production slows down dramatically. I have trouble getting them.” “But once it cools off, they really start coming and we get too many”
I had no idea that fried chickens don’t lay eggs.
They work with a lot of names in our area that you are already familiar with, Hunter Cattle Company in Brooklet and Savannah River Farms near Sylvania. Even Russo’s Seafood gets shipped up the street to South Carolina. “We get our lamb from a guy in Barnwell, South Carolina.” “Everything we use comes from within a 150 mile radius of Beaufort.”
Their warehouse for pick up is on Waters and 59th in Savannah, which makes it pretty easy to pick up on Fridays. They even work with chefs across the Low Country, the plan is to hope to expand their service to chefs in Savannah as well. Chefs get personal delivery service, because you know, they are fancy pants like that.
One thing that is important to mention here is price. I very directly asked Patrick if they keep their prices competitive or is there some fat added to the price tag to cover their costs. “We are not high.” he said. “Our farmers set their prices. Same as the market.” “Instead of paying a booth fee at the market, we get a tiny percentage of their sale.” “The prices are essentially the same as a farmers market.” But he wanted to make sure he added “We are pretty conventional.” he says “We try not to do high end products. You won’t find gourmet grits here that you will give away as a Christmas present. That’s not what we do.”
All of that, and no need to look up a new recipe for kale.
See you on TV,
Jesse
