Lynn Byczynski, the editor of Growing for Market, recently asked me to write a short article on selling farm produce to universities. Valuing GFM more than I can express, I acquiesced – but for once am struggling for words. This is because our farm sells via a subscription service, at farmers’ markets, to 12 restaurant and grocery accounts, and to two universities and a college. But the three academic accounts first contacted us and pursued a business relationship with no sales pitch whatsoever on my part. And the three schools’ very large dining, catering, and special events operations are all run by one very special national corporation, Bon Appetit Management Corporation.

I am truly ignorant about placing a cold call to a university. I only know about our farm’s excellent working relationship with Bon Appetit. And that company wants to hear from more farmers, quite possibly in your part of the country. I’ll briefly give you some background, then give you the pros and cons in selling to universities, and finally provide contact information for Bon Appetit.

You need to know that one trend in academia and large companies has been away from running their own cafeterias or dining facilities. Students and employees need to eat, but contracting with food service corporations that run many such sites has increasing appeal. Bon Appetit is an example from the uppermost tier of dining specialists.

You also need to know that our farm’s marketing strategy is focused on value and accessibility rather than on dramatic pricing or getting a substantial premium for being certified organic. We feel that our wholesale accounts need to make money on every case they buy, and that our farm’s outstanding vegetables and fruits should be considered as staples – to be bought weekly and in large quantities – rather than as luxury items to be chosen only when a restaurant’s owner or accountant isn’t giving the chef grief over food cost numbers. We have competitors that wholesale mesclun at $24 a case and heirloom tomatoes, in July, at $3.40 a pound. We don’t take that route, and consequently have many, many vociferously loyal wholesale and retail customers. This also means that new accounts – like university dining services – likely find our superior goods to be more expensive than the flood of mainstream junk but still quite affordable.

The positives of selling to our collegiate accounts are:
• They can handle very large amounts of diverse produce when classes are in session.
•Bon Appetit accounting was much more flexible than any other nationwide corporation to whom we’ve sold. Our terms for new accounts are 15-day net, and Bon Appetit has been able to do this, unlike certain all-talk but poor-reality famous supermarket chains.
•The checks don’t bounce.
•The chefs know that there are different levels of quality in foods and don’t try to get us to reduce what we charge down to the absurd and economically untenable prices of nationally-marketed junk produce. They know that there is a world of difference between a hybrid tomato picked green and an heirloom beefsteak that really did ripen in the sun and on the vine.
•The chefs we’ve encountered have been as creative with novel products as have any of our restaurant chefs. Bon Appetit chefs think on their toes and want to feed their customers really well. This makes for a nice fit with farmers who often plant new crops and who are committed to only harvesting outstanding foods.
•The upper management have all been genuinely polite and civil. This is in welcome contrast with the restaurant world, where the harried chef and/or the abrupt general manager often make for unintentional rudeness. It is also very different than some of the national supermarket chains, in which purchasing agents can treat the work we do with little respect and the goods we grow with jaded distrust.

The negative aspects that we’ve experienced in selling to schools are:
•When classes aren’t in session, colleges want little or nothing. August comes immediately to mind: that month when we’re awash in tomatoes, and there are no consuming students to be had. Get a schedule of winter, spring, and summer breaks, and you will not be unpleasantly surprised.
•In most instances, small initial harvests are of no use to large institutional accounts. That first case of frost-sweetened collards, that first scant picking of intensely aromatic over-wintered cilantro, that first flat of phenomenal Earliglow strawberries in May, are highly valued by restaurant chefs competing for excited customers and cheerfully satiated newspaper food critics. But the executive chefs at universities are daily feeding countless more people than any well-reviewed cozy restaurant. I only offer high-volume, peak-season crops to our academic accounts. The little lots aren’t relevant.

If you want to sell to universities or colleges, I urge you to consider contacting Bon Appetit first to see if they manage any facilities near you. I cannot guarantee you’ll do well, but the company has simplified our farm’s marketing approach by providing a pleasant, mutually respectful alternative to some other types of high-volume accounts. People and good relationships count in business, and the people and practices at Bon Appetit have forced my stubborn mind to concede that some nationwide companies can really help, rather than hurt, small farms. Their web site is bamco.com (for Bon Appetit Management Company) or email Maisie Ganzler at farmtofork@bamco.com. And farmer to farmer, I wish you the best of fortune in all the ways you may choose to sell your goods.

Brett Grohsgal co-owns Even’ Star Organic Farm with his wife, Dr. Christine Bergmark, in southern Maryland.