June 16, 2025 • 44 mins
Join Brian Sheehan as he sits down with Katie Baldwin and Amanda Merrow, Founders of Amber Waves. What happens when two aspiring professionals with backgrounds in economics and international relations stumble into farming? For Katie Baldwin and Amanda Merrow, it sparked the creation of Amber Waves Farm, a revolutionary nonprofit teaching farm that's redefining what farm-to-table truly means.
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Katie Baldwin (00:03):
And that's how we started to think about what
products we would carry and why.
What complements what we weregrowing?
What builds the basket?
What do people need?
And I think you know, in thecontext of being vertically
integrated and having an on-siteretail market, there are you
know it's a very narrowpercentage of vegetables that
(00:25):
are retail ready.
They have to be nearly perfectin appearance, no nicks or dings
or scratches, or, you know,they really have to look
exceptional for retail.
And a way that we decided toexpand our product offerings
beyond raw fruits and vegetablesis to create a kitchen within
(00:46):
the retail market to start toprocess vegetables into
value-added prepared foods.
And I think that evolution isimportant to point out for us
because, while we were retailingraw fruits and vegetables, the
customer demand trend that came,especially in the last several
years, is that people's desirefor prepared foods, prepared
(01:10):
salads, prepared vegetabledishes in a retail context is
something that we now leanreally heavily on.
Brian Sheehan (01:18):
Welcome to Retail Intel, the podcast where we
dive deep into the dynamic worldof commercial real estate.
I'm your host, brian Sheehan,and I'm thrilled to be your
guide on this journey throughthe bustling streets of retail,
the aisles of shopping centersand the world of commercial
property investment.
Today I'm excited to welcomethe co-founders of Amber Waves
(01:40):
Farm, katie Baldwin and AmandaMerrow, to the show.
Waves Farm, katie Baldwin andAmanda Marrow to the show.
Amber Waves is a growing,non-profit teaching farm market
and farm shop that unites foodand community to provide
educational opportunities inagriculture for aspiring growers
, thoughtful cooks and eaters ofall ages.
(02:00):
From humble beginnings tobecoming a cornerstone of
multiple communities, theirjourney is truly inspiring.
I'm eager to learn more abouttheir story and the incredible
impact of Amber Waves Farm.
Yeah, well, let's jump rightinto it.
I'd love to start with yourbackground.
So can you tell us more aboutkind of your career journeys and
(02:22):
then what ultimately led you tostart Amber Waves?
Katie Baldwin (02:26):
Amanda, you go first.
Amanda Merrow (02:28):
Okay, well, I you know I was fortunate to find
agriculture really just afterundergrad, right after I
finished college.
I graduated in 2007 fromHamilton College with a degree
in economics and environmentalstudies and thought that I
wanted to do something in theworld of economic development,
microfinance, women'sempowerment, something in the
(02:49):
developing world, you know, tohelp people.
And this thing happens whenyou're a new graduate, where you
can't get a job withoutexperience and you can't get
experience without a job.
You're in this kind of tricky,tight spot.
And so I was looking around forsomething to do to get myself
some experience, so that I'd bequalified for something else,
essentially.
And someone recommended to methat I check out Quail Hill Farm
(03:10):
, which is where Katie and I metin Amagansett, about 500 yards
from where Amber Waves is now,and I went and interviewed with
Scott Chaskey, who then becameour mentor, and decided to do a
season-long farmingapprenticeship to kind of learn
the ins and outs of agriculture,thinking that I would take that
experience to do something else.
(03:30):
But then, in fact, whathappened that season is that I
completely fell in love with thework.
I just was like kind of sweptoff my feet by it, and by July
of that year Katie and I werereally scheming of how it was
that we could continue to farmtogether and to farm in
Amagansett, you know, on theeast end of Long Island, and I
(03:52):
really never looked back afterthat.
So I certainly didn't set outto be a farmer, I you know I
wanted to make the world abetter place.
I wasn't quite sure how and Ijust I feel so fortunate that I
kind of stumbled into itaccidentally as a 22 year old.
Brian Sheehan (04:07):
Katie, anything you want to add to that
background?
Katie Baldwin (04:10):
Yeah, my journey is a little bit different about
how I arrived at Quail Hill.
I graduated from the Universityof Southern California with a
degree in internationalrelations and I had an interest
in taking a career on the pathof working in diplomacy, foreign
service, non-governmentalorganizations, and so I took a
(04:31):
job experience in the real worldof how is policy made.
Being in a think tankenvironment post-graduation gave
(04:54):
me the opportunity to haveexposure to other fields,
including public health, and Ihad not gained any experience
with that arena in my studies.
But I started to make theconnections and my own personal
interest in public health whatthat means on the international
level, what it means on thelocal level, and how does food
(05:15):
play into it?
I had a particular interest infood, and so a friend
recommended that I just scratchthat itch and go start talking
to farmers at the Union SquareFarmers Market.
And what I started to uncover?
There was these hardworkingfolks who'd been up since 2 am,
who had loaded up their trucksand traveled up to sometimes
(05:39):
nearly four or five hours tosell their wares under a tent to
millions of people in fourhours time, and they did it with
an upbeat smile and passionthat I could not believe they
were taking time to talk with meabout their favorite tomato and
how they grew their garlic, andit was something that really
stuck with me, because talkabout excellent salespeople they
(06:02):
do not want to go home withthat food, they want to tell you
the story of how they grew itand they want to tell you how
good it tastes and they want youto buy it.
And they do it convincingly andlovingly.
And so I think what captured meat that time was I am
interested in food.
I don't know a lot about whereour food comes from.
These people love what they do.
These farmers love what they do.
(06:24):
It's hard.
These people love what they do.
These farmers love what they do.
It's hard, but it's fun andit's good work.
And so then I started to explorehow does one become a farmer?
I'm not a farmer, I was not onthis path.
So you can go back to school,you can go to graduate school
and sit in the classroom andunderstand it kind of from the
academic soil scienceperspective, or you can
literally get your hands dirtyin.
What I discovered is anapprenticeship program model
(06:47):
where you work at a farm for ayear, which is ultimately what I
ended up choosing to do to testit out to see.
You know.
Well, if I'm going to be infood policy, I better understand
what it's like to start growingfood from seed.
What is even the process andhow does it work on the very
(07:08):
micro level?
And so I took an apprenticeshipat Quail Hill Farm and met
Amanda there.
Brian Sheehan (07:14):
It's fascinating that neither of you really set
out to become farmers per se andended up having this shared
experience.
And then what was it at QuailHill that made you think you
know we should go start our ownthing?
Was that part of the program?
I mean, they were reallytraining you to go out and do
this on your own.
Amanda Merrow (07:34):
Well, I think that you know, starting in the
middle of that season, we werethinking, well, how can we just
keep farming by any meansnecessary?
And there wasn't necessarilylike a forward career path
available at that time for us atQuail Hill, for us to stay for
a second season.
And in looking around at theother farms on the east end, it
didn't really feel like they hadjobs for people like us who
(07:54):
were inexperienced, and westarted just kind of fantasizing
about the type of farm we couldhave if it was our own farm.
So we were thinking about, youknow, a fabric farm or a pizza
farm or you know someexperiential, fantastical place,
because when you're, you know,when you're working side by side
in a farm field, your hands arebusy but your mind is not.
And so there's really there'skind of no better place to make
(08:14):
a real connection with yourcolleagues and coworkers, which
is how Katie and I became soclose that season.
And so we started really kindof scheming about this.
And so we started really kindof scheming about this, and when
we were talking about kind ofdaydreaming about the sort of
farm that we would have, we weretalking and reflecting on the
diversity of the East End foodshed.
So where we are here at the East, on the eastern end of Long
(08:37):
Island, has a tremendously richheritage of agriculture here,
and so it's fruits andvegetables and, of course,
seafood and meat and eggs anddairy.
And no one, when we were goingkind of through the you know,
the food pyramid, we wererealizing, huh, no one really is
growing grains or certainly notorganic grains for culinary
(08:57):
consumption.
People are growing cover cropgrains, and so that really kind
of piqued our interest and wewere very friendly at the time
with a baker who'd had asourdough starter that he
started in Amagansett in the1950s, that was still alive, and
we learned a lot from him andkind of his.
You know, we kind of hooked onthis concept of wheat and grains
(09:19):
and thought, oh, that might bekind of the hook, that might be
the niche for us if we're goingto start our own farm, something
that might differentiateourselves from our neighbors but
also help to shore up andstrengthen the East End's food
shed, you know, in terms ofdiversifying the products that
are grown here.
So we went about, we startedthinking really seriously about
starting Amber Waves and then,of course, in 2008 was the
(09:41):
financial crisis and so, as wildas it kind of seemed to start
our own farm with one year ofexperience, our friends who'd
taken more traditional careerpaths were kind of losing their
jobs left and right and it justseemed like actually spending
your career growing food foryourself and others didn't
actually seem and, given thecontext of the time, didn't
(10:02):
actually seem as risky as it mayhave in other economic
environments, and so we decidedto just go for it.
So we submitted a business planin response to a public request
for proposals.
That went out the year that wewere apprentices on a newly
preserved piece of farmland andwe were awarded a three-year
lease on it, and we just pickedourselves up and went around the
(10:23):
corner and started Amber Wavesin March of 2009.
Brian Sheehan (10:26):
So there's a lot of different pieces to Amber
Waves Farm and I'm curious howdo you describe to people in a
nutshell you know, sort of likeyour mission and then all the
things that you do and providein the community?
Amanda Merrow (10:43):
It's hard to wrap it up in a few sentences.
I usually lead by tellingpeople that we're a teaching
farm.
So Amber Waves is a 501c3nonprofit organization, you know
, with no owners.
Katie and I are the co-foundersand co-directors and on our
board of directors, but it'sreally.
It's a farm that exists toteach people about food and that
takes shape in grower education, so new farmer training through
(11:05):
our apprenticeship program, andthen eater education, which of
course is everybody, becauseeverybody eats.
But we really what wespecialize in?
Young children, but we haveprograms and experiences for
people of all ages.
So if when I'm when I'm tryingto wrap Amber waves up into a
couple sentences, you know we'rea teaching farm a mile from the
ocean on Eastern long Island on35 acres with a roadside market
(11:28):
and kitchen and robust kidsprogramming it's kind of the way
to say it which I think takespeople a minute to digest.
But that's, that's who we areand what we do.
Brian Sheehan (11:36):
And a farm shop as well, right.
Amanda Merrow (11:39):
Yes, yeah, a roadside, yeah, a roadside farm
market.
Brian Sheehan (11:41):
Yeah, okay.
Amanda Merrow (11:43):
Yeah, the you know retail Right.
Brian Sheehan (11:53):
Well, and that's the emphasis on retail intel,
and I think I probably firstheard about Amber Waves oh maybe
a year ago and was reallyinterested in kind of the story
behind some of the products thatsort of became kind of like
viral basically and really tookoff and helped tell the story
about Amber Waves to the rest ofthe world.
I wonder if you wouldn't mindtalking about that for a second.
Let's start with, I guess, howdoes the retail component of
(12:19):
your business support themission behind it?
How integral is it to yourbusiness, maybe from a shared
revenue perspective?
Does the farm work without themarket?
Vice versa, a big part of ourtenant mix.
We call them neighbors but likeour neighbor mix, you know, we
(12:39):
always have a grocery store andthen we have other retail stores
and service providers alongsideof those.
You guys are unique, it wouldbe in our world is that the
farm's there with the marketplus some other retail that goes
along with it?
Right, like, how does that allfit together?
Katie Baldwin (12:53):
Well, we are unique in that we are a
vertically integratedorganization.
So that we start seeding plants, we start I'll use salad as an
example so we start seedinglettuce on the property in a
greenhouse, the farmers grow itand wash it and walk it to the
(13:13):
kitchen, which is also on site,where they begin to process it,
make dressings for retail and todress the salad.
And then the salad can go outthrough the door, either in a
packaged to-go container througha retail market or be ordered
off of a menu through a cafe orrestaurant style embedded in the
retail.
So I would describe it.
(13:35):
So I think the verticalintegration part, the retail
being the last touch point.
But we have been creating theproduct on site for months
already.
So the integration of the retailcame later.
We were farmers first.
Our version of retail early onwas going to farmers markets off
(13:55):
site and in a weekly contextand selling our wares.
And we had the opportunity tostart a retail market on the
farm seven years later, after wehad already started.
Later after we had alreadystarted, and it felt like a
(14:15):
moment in time where we didn'thave retail experience outside
of a weekly farmer's market butthe opportunity to increase our
revenue through retail salesseemed like it happened at the
right time in our growth arc.
We needed it to continue.
We needed the retail revenue tocontinue to grow the
organization.
Amanda, do you want to add tothat concept of vertical
(14:39):
integration retail on site?
Amanda Merrow (14:41):
Yeah, our market now is kind of a huge bustling
year round brick and mortarinstitution.
But for the first seven yearsthat we farmed, katie and I went
to the farmer's market and, youknow, became those people that
Katie was talking about at UnionSquare.
I mean, we weren't going toUnion Square, we were going to
the town green in Montauk once aweek and, you know, selling
(15:01):
produce to people in theirbathing suits right off the
beach.
But Katie and I have alwaysreally loved commerce.
We love displays, we lovemarketing, you know we love
signage, we love a display box,we love displays, we love
marketing.
We, you know we love signage,we love we just we we love a
display box, we love a falsebottom, we love cascading, you
know, kale and tomatoes out ofbaskets, and so we always really
were drawn to that and that waskind of it was such a fun day
(15:22):
for us off the farm on Thursdaysfor the.
You know, for the first sevenyears that we farmed together
and I think the thing that wereally like, kind of the hook
that we got in those early years, was getting immediate customer
feedback about what peoplewanted and what the new food
trends were, which would kind ofinform us of how we might build
our displays but also how we'dbuild our crop list in the
(15:43):
following year, like I rememberkind of you know that when
shishito peppers started tobecome a thing and Japanese
eggplant started started tobecome a thing and people would
start asking more about this andwe'd kind of feel a trend
coming and that was so fun.
So by the time that we were ableto open our market on site,
when we had the opportunity tobuy our farmland and there was a
brick and mortar market on thefarmland which had previously
(16:05):
been separated and isolated fromthe farm, but under Amber
Wave's ownership the two havebeen linked back together we had
this kind of like desire anddrive to sell things, but not at
the scale that we're doing now.
It's much more, you know, muchmore extreme than our 10 by 20
once a week tent.
Brian Sheehan (16:26):
There's so many interesting pieces to that and I
didn't think about, kind oflike the lead time in your
product selection curationprocess that you know a customer
asks for a particular type ofproduce, you go out and find the
seeds, you plant those, you seeif they grow well Next year,
(16:46):
next year you can offer it, youknow, and there's similar lead
times and kind of every productthat any merchant is going to
sell, right, I guess.
When we back up a second,though, so you know to your
point, everybody is a foodconsumer, nearly everybody buys
groceries or produce at somepoint, right, and there's
(17:06):
something really unique aboutyour model and so far as you get
to buy it right where it'sproduced, where it's grown, and
it's very experiential and I'mcurious that's such a big part
of the retail environment today.
How important was that for you,transitioning from the farmers
(17:28):
markets to having your own kindof quote, unquote brick and
mortar store?
Did you think about it being avery experiential type of retail
experience?
Amanda Merrow (17:38):
Well, in the years that when we were going to
the weekly farmer's market, wealso had weekly CSA pickups at
our farm, so we kind of alreadyhad like these two separate
customers.
We had people coming to thefarm every week to pick up their
community supported agricultureshares, you know, so they
bought in at the beginning ofthe season.
You sign up for a weekly box ofvegetables.
We also offered pick your ownflowers as included in your
(18:00):
membership alongside that.
So Katie and I were used tohosting people on the farm for
an experiential day with usalready and we loved that too.
And so really kind of bringingretail on site really kind of
merged those two, the two thingsthat we were already doing.
Brian Sheehan (18:17):
Gotcha, what led to kind of the actual what was
the idea behind transitioninginto a physical storefront that
you owned or controlled, youknow, right next to the site,
and how did you navigate it?
So you're leasing farm land,correct, and then want to
co-locate a store on site, canyou talk a little bit about that
(18:40):
process?
Katie Baldwin (18:41):
The idea of having a retail location on farm
for us became something that wesaw ourselves being able to
grow into it.
The market itself, the buildingitself, already existed on the
property, but there was anothergrocery operator in the space.
So we had the opportunity toenvision we're vegetable farmers
(19:05):
and we can supply all thefruits and vegetables to that
market.
We can do that, but it was adifferent transition than to
take on about a 3,000 squarefoot retail building that had
traditionally been a seasonalmarket to service our customers
from the months of really likeMay to September, super highly
(19:28):
seasonal.
What would it be like to expandthe Amber Waves experience so
that when they're picking uptheir vegetables through the
community supported agriculturesubscription retail model
essentially to go next door, tocreate a retail experience that
could complement what we weregrowing.
So we started to think about,as retailers, the fruits and
(19:52):
vegetables, the plants that wewere growing are the center, the
heart of the market.
It's almost the inverse of atraditional grocery retail
experience where you find thecenter of the market is dry
packaged or frozen goods.
We were the opposite.
We had heavy emphasis on fresh.
It was our whole world.
It's all we knew.
We spent time growing food thatwas going to expire or start
(20:17):
decomposing in 72 hours.
So we were really good atinventory turns of fresh produce
that we were growing and wewanted to keep that ethos and
keep that at the core center ofour market.
But what we discovered is thatwe had the opportunity to build
out our customer's basket to saythey were committed to finding
(20:39):
highly seasonal, nutrient-densevegetables from us, but that
they also wanted a dressing fortheir salad and they also wanted
balsamic and olive oil to topdress their tomatoes and they
also wanted a nice sea salt.
So essentially for the homecook, we built a really nice
market with the vegetables beingat the core, but for home cooks
(21:01):
who wanted to round out a meal.
And that's how we started tothink about what products we
would carry and why whatcomplements what we were growing
.
To think about what products wewould carry and why what
complements what we were growing, what builds the basket?
What do people need?
And I think you know, in thecontext of being vertically
integrated and having an on-siteretail market, there are you
(21:22):
know it's a very narrowpercentage of vegetables that
are retail ready.
They have to be nearly perfectin appearance that are retail
ready.
They have to be nearly perfectin appearance no nicks or dings
or scratches, or, you know, theyreally have to look exceptional
for retail.
And a way that we decided toexpand our product offerings
beyond raw fruits and vegetablesis to create a kitchen within
(21:47):
the retail market to start toprocess vegetables into
value-added prepared foods.
And I think that evolution isimportant to point out for us
because while we were retailingraw fruits and vegetables, the
customer demand trend that came,especially in the last several
years, is that people's desirefor prepared foods, prepared
(22:11):
salads, prepared vegetabledishes in a retail context is
something that we now leanreally heavily on in terms of
production, with a kitchenthat's associated with the
retail market and also is amajor revenue driver for the
retail market.
Brian Sheehan (22:28):
Yeah, we see that in our portfolio certainly
doesn't seem to be kind of goingaway and you felt really well
positioned to be able to developthose products because you had
the ingredients and it wasn't astretch to build out a kitchen
inside the 3,000 square footspace.
Amanda Merrow (22:47):
There had been a kitchen which had been abandoned
in the kind of in the few yearsbefore we took over the market.
So there was a space for it.
But we put in ovens and a rangeand, you know, entering the
retail was, like you know, ahugely steep learning curve.
And then opening a kitchen ayear later was another huge,
(23:08):
just bite of the apple for us ofhow to figure out how to make
that work as well.
Katie Baldwin (23:14):
I think to circle back, since we're an
educational institution.
We did know and we hadexperienced that one of the best
ways to educate eaters is I'lluse wheat, the Amber Waves
namesake we started growinggrains.
One of the best ways to educatean eater about the story of a
grain is while they're having awhole wheat blueberry muffin.
(23:36):
I mean it really cements thefood story such that Amanda can
describe how complex it was toseed the grain in October and
the nine months of care it tookto grow the whole wheat and that
we milled it into whole wheatflour.
And what is whole wheat flour?
It's in your muffin right nowthat we baked five minutes ago.
(23:58):
So this living, breathingretail experience that is full
sensory in the market iscomplemented with the farmer
telling you here's how I didthat, here's how I made that for
you.
The farmer telling you here'show I did that, here's how I
made that for you.
And I think what we'vediscovered is there's just a
(24:21):
different level of appreciationfor food that our customers have
because they know their farmerand they can ask them questions
and they have an appreciationfor the whole story arc of the
muffin, from seeding it inOctober to eating it 10 months
later and enjoying it.
And that sort of food educationis the underpinning of the
(24:42):
whole organization.
Brian Sheehan (24:43):
That's incredible .
It's such a core part of how tobe successful in retail today,
kind of what you just described,which is having that level of
knowledge and passion for theproduct on the shelf and being
able to translate that to yourcustomer in a way that creates a
(25:04):
connection.
That's kind of unlike what youfind a lot of times throughout
our economy, right, and I guessI'm so curious about the retail
component of the business, notjust because it evolved
naturally for you it sounds likebut it sounds like it's really
integral to the success andsupporting the farm.
(25:26):
And I'm curious if you can talka little bit about how they
support each other sort of notmaybe specifically the economics
of it, but how do you thinkabout that dynamic and that
relationship?
Could this model work for anyother nonprofit that's in a
similar sort of situation, maybein another geography, any other
(25:50):
part of America?
Really?
Amanda Merrow (25:53):
be in another geography, any other part of
America.
Really Well, I think somethingthat's like fun and exciting
about small farms and whythey're so important in the you
know, in the fabric ofstrengthening regional food
systems around the country, isthat they're nimble and they can
adapt to what their localcommunity kind of demands and
calls for in a way that well,just in a way that can be really
helpful.
So that means opening a storethat is suitable for the
customers that live there andsupporting, you know, food
(26:16):
security challenges in their owncommunities.
They're just nimble and able toadapt kind of immediately.
So I think, in terms of youknow if would an exact carbon
copy of Amber Waves exist inrural Iowa?
Perhaps not, but there is amodel that would.
There is a model, I think, thatcould be a cousin of ours that
would work.
So, and in terms of I mean totouch on the vertical
(26:37):
integration piece, I thinkhaving knowing that we are in
control of how things look onthe shelf at the end gives us
this control over really whatour crop list is.
So a fun thing that we sell atour market is edible flowers and
these little packages that arebeautiful to put in a salad or
to put on cupcakes, and that wemake summer rolls in our kitchen
(26:58):
that and you can see themthrough the rice paper wrappers
and they're absolutely beautiful.
They have a short shelf life.
I mean, like how you would getthose from a farm field into a
conventional grocery store wouldreally be a challenge, but
we're able to do that, and so Ithink this vertical integration
of being the end retailertalking to the end user gives us
the opportunity to grow reallyfun and exciting things that we
(27:19):
otherwise wouldn't if they weregoing on a wholesale truck and
certainly most people are, youknow, have to buy things that
are coming off of a truck.
But I think that you know, ingoing to a local farm market, a
local farm stand, you are goingto find things that you don't
find in other places, and so Ithink that the fact that we have
unique items that are comingout of the field really drives
(27:39):
people into the retail space.
And then the fact that we areour own middleman helps us take
kind of take margin at everysingle pass where we would
otherwise be wholesaling ortrekking stuff off site enables
us to kind of keep that marginfor a stronger revenue profile
at the market that ends up.
We I mean, as you know, as anon-profit we're reliant on
grants and contributions andprivate funding that we seek off
(28:03):
the farm, but we think ofourselves and our retail market
as our own biggest donor andwe're able to do that because of
the market.
So that's a really helpfulpiece to our kind of financial
resiliency, I think,particularly now with what's
going on nationally, with peoplewho were reliant on federal
funding and kind of seeing thatfunding evaporate and are
wondering what the future oftheir organizations are, we will
(28:27):
be able to pivot in the waysthat we need, because we're so
diversified in terms of the, youknow of our top line revenue
the mix between children'seducational programming, retail
sales, sales from our kitchen,nonprofit funding that we're
able to kind of mix those in apot that can shift a little bit
from year to year.
It gives us some control.
That makes us feel a littlemore comfortable.
Brian Sheehan (28:50):
Well, I think one of the ways I originally became
aware of Amber Waves wasthrough your hat and some of
your apparel, and I'm curious,kind of to your point about how
important that is.
Do you think about Amber Wavesbecoming a brand per se?
You know, in terms of apparel,and that you know that is a way
(29:14):
not just to expand your missionbut to also grow the brand
nationally, internationally,that you know this is a way to
help support and diversify yourrevenue stream further.
Is that something you're reallyleaning into?
Katie Baldwin (29:26):
I think it is.
But I think the reason it'sworking is because it came from
such, I mean, much of what we'vetalked about already.
It just started from such anauthentic place and the story of
the hat just comes from.
We're farmers working in thefarm field and we need a hat.
And I was wearing a differenthat that said something else on
it and people kept asking us isthat the name of your farm?
(29:46):
And we're like no, it's not.
I guess we should print ourfarm name on a hat.
No, it's not, I guess we shouldprint our farm name on a hat.
So I mean, from that context itjust became, you know, I mean
that old adage, necessity is themother of invention.
We had to wear hats in the fieldor outside in the sun for 12
hours a day.
We were wearing a comfortable,breathable hat that we thought
was like tolerably stylish atthe time, and what happened was
(30:10):
we gave them away to our CSAmembers for a while and then we
were like hmm, like we need tomake, we can't be losing money
on this, so why don't we likeself-serve, like leave a $10
bill in a little bucket and takeyour hat?
And it was like our 18s.
It was people who were joiningour club as people who were
(30:31):
supporting a local farm and theywere proud to do it and it was
their way of saying I'm proud ofthis, I'm proud to be
supporting this, about the ideaof their place in the food chain
(30:53):
, as eaters wanting to supportlocal farmers, that they will
wear a brand that says the farmname on it, and that became a
thing in Amagansett.
It was almost like I'm notgoing to wear a Nike hat, I'm
going to wear an Amber Wavesfarm hat.
And so the growth of that.
Over time I think it became likehey, do you know Katie and
Amanda and they started AmberWaves and I'm going to wear
(31:16):
their hat to support them andhelp get their mission and
message out there.
That was the origin story of it,but I think what it has become
for us is still very much that.
I mean we still think of it asa way to communicate why it's
important to support your localfarmer, and if you're going to
wear an Amber Waves hat insteadof any other brand, then good,
(31:38):
please, be our Amber Basseterand wear it and tell the story
of why it's important to supportyour local farmer.
So I think Amanda and I, for along time we were reluctant to
even say oh, we're a brand.
We are, we have created a brand, but we've done it over time in
a way that kind of much likeour personalities, is just
authentic and meaningful in thatit is an avenue to tell, is an
(32:03):
avenue for education.
Really, if people say what isAmber Waves Farm, then it's the
hat, is a prompt to be able toshare our work.
Brian Sheehan (32:12):
It's so important .
You really can't fabricate thatkind of authenticity, and the
authenticity is what helps makethe brand itself successful and
grow and something that peoplewant to be a part of over time.
And then thinking about goingforward, how do we want to
expand that, our reach?
Thinking about the future, Iguess what are your growth goals
(32:34):
over the next five years?
What's in store for Amber WavesFarm?
Do you envision having, youknow, more physical retail
locations as part of that?
How are you going to continueto grow this?
Amanda Merrow (32:45):
We opened a second location a couple years
ago in East Hampton Village, sojust about five miles from the
home base of the farm, andthat's been really fun.
It's fun to be in a second spot.
I think that the expansion thatKatie and I are really thinking
about in the next five years isactually on-property expansion.
We farm 35 acres 10 of those weown and the 10 that we own is
largely open to the public.
(33:06):
That's a huge part of whatAmber Waves is From the
beginning.
One of the reasons Katie and Istarted as a nonprofit is that
we wanted to build somethingthat was bigger than the two of
us combined and that wouldoutlive us, and so we have
created a food campus that needssome infrastructure.
That needs some year-roundinfrastructure so that people
can use our campus year-round.
You know our gates are openevery day of the year, but in
(33:28):
the you know inclement weatherof February it's hard to get
people excited about being onthe farm, and so I think signage
and wayfinding and paths and abarn and some indoor growing
space and is kind of where we're.
We're looking for the nextseveral years to kind of shore
up the facilities on on site.
Brian Sheehan (33:44):
Thinking about somebody that's in a similar
situation, and I think there's agood part of our audience is a
you know, maybe first timeretail entrepreneur.
Maybe they have one locationsor multiple locations.
How do you think about growthand expansion, specifically with
your retail footprint?
(34:06):
What was it that drove you towant to open the location in
East Hampton, and what are somemetrics that you use to judge
how well that store performs?
Because your model's a littlebit unique, but in some ways,
it's also physical retail thatneeds to perform well, and so
(34:27):
how do you think about that?
Amanda Merrow (34:28):
Yeah and well, and I'll just mention that.
You know and sometimes in beinga nonprofit organization
there's kind of a little bit ofa misnomer there that we in fact
we must have a net surplus.
You know we must have a bottomline at the end of the year.
The distinction is that any netsurplus that the farm makes in
a given year is it doesn't, it'snot paid out to, you know, to
(34:48):
shareholders or partners.
It stays within theorganization and goes back in to
fund programs and capitalprojects et cetera.
So we are certainly using theretail to pay for the programs
and doing our very best to comeout on top every year.
So I'll just mention that.
So I think within the confinesof the retail operation we kind
of function like conventionalretail does.
(35:11):
We're paying close attention toour margins by department.
I think that the advice thatprobably Katie and I would give
in something we've gottenconsiderably better at in the
last five or six years iskeeping track of our data and
looking for patterns and lookinghow things grow and
understanding kind of growthtrajectory and where it feels
(35:32):
like there's opportunity forgrowth and where our costs are
both opportunity costs in termsof our time and, you know,
bandwidth and then also reallyhow much cost is allocated to
producing a certain product orlike doing something a certain
way, and I think it's.
You know the numbers.
The numbers really will set youfree.
They're scary at first, but Imean, I think that we we started
(36:00):
introducing these conceptsafter learning them in in kind
of what we call like businessnight school of, of running a
retail operation, of saying, youknow, if you're doing an
analysis on how much it costs orhow much you're making given a
given in a given crop, and yourealize you're losing money
growing something, and you haveto ask yourself, like, gosh, it
costs me $2,500 a year to growgreen beans for not making any
money on them at all.
Does it make sense for us tostill grow that thing?
(36:21):
And I think, applying thatrigor across the board, not
getting too emotionally attachedto anything that we do, so that
we can kind of identify or atthe very least identify winners
and maybe things that aresinking us but that the public
loves, and at least with thatknowledge comes the freedom of
saying gosh, this is really abreakeven product, but the
(36:43):
public loves it and everyone whocomes in to buy fill in the
blank item also buys this otheritem which is really important
for us, and so we're going tokeep it.
So I think we're paying closeattention to growth overall,
like top line growth and thengrowth within the departments or
movement within the departments, what our margin is by
department, what our grossmargin is in our store, what our
(37:04):
labor to revenue ratio is.
Those are like our key KPIs thatwe're paying attention to on a
monthly basis and we're reallyopen with sharing those numbers
with our senior leadership staffso people know exactly where
they are in terms of their spend, the margin of the department
that they are responsible for,their labor to revenue ratio.
(37:24):
It makes them think muchdifferently about the schedule.
You know, katie and I don't makethe schedule, but you know you
can really you can lose yourshirt in a month if we're slow
in a month and we and we haven'tstaffed appropriately or we may
have, you know, we may havecome out clean and instead,
whoops, we were overstaffed thewhole month and any, any surplus
that we would have made is lost.
And I think, particularly inour environment we're so hyper
(37:46):
seasonal where we have to do 75%of our revenue in 25% of the
year a lot of pressure toperform well in the high season
summer months and then to kindof trim our losses as much as we
can in the shoulder seasons andin the off season, but while
also still wanting to be aconsistent employer of our
people.
Our team is big and they'rereally loyal and they're really
(38:08):
excellent.
So that was a lot of thingsthat we're paying attention to,
but that's kind of like what astandard outline of a weekly
management meeting that Katieand I'll have touches on each of
those pieces that I justmentioned.
Katie Baldwin (38:21):
Brian, to hit on your point of the second
location, we held back and wewatched some of our other local
small business colleagues do itfirst and we had realized that
there were three businesses thatwere either core similarities
or just slightly different thanours.
(38:43):
That began to open a second andthird and even fourth location
and we started to understandthat we were going through a
tremendous amount of effort togrow and make our products and
then to add another outlet tosell them, albeit only four
(39:04):
miles away.
It's an entirely differentcustomer base.
It gives us an entirelydifferent marketing opportunity
for all of our educationalprogramming to reach those folks
and we had already gone throughthe effort of making the
product.
We thought getting that extrabump in revenue was important.
(39:26):
The note on that because we'resuch a highly seasonal place,
like Amanda said, we're usuallygoing to have a very short time
to do most of our revenue.
The second location is, we'vedetermined is important.
In being such a highly seasonalbusiness, it helps us get to
our goals.
Brian Sheehan (39:45):
Maybe the last question.
I know we're kind of runningout of time here, but thinking
about how the first you know,the farm field, market, kitchen
location really is truly adestination in every sense of
the word.
Your second location do youfeel it functions as the same
(40:05):
People view it as a destination?
Really, it's competing with alot of other retailers in a way
that doesn't have the same drawas the farm does, and I wonder
how you think about that.
Amanda Merrow (40:16):
Yeah, definitely doesn't have the same draw that
the farm does.
I mean Amber Waves, like thefarm that we steward, that
farmland is just pure magic.
Just the first time that Katieand I set foot on it we just we
fell in love with it.
And it's hard to recreate thatmagic, I think, think in any
other location, because it'sjust, you know, amber, the Amber
Waves, the original place isjust, it's our baby, we love it.
(40:38):
But I think that now that we'retwo years into, or coming into
our third season of our EastHampton store, it's starting to
kind of have its own identity.
It's a really special thing tokind of walk quietly in that
store and we don't necessarilyknow all the customers there and
to see, you know, our teamthat's in that store have their
own regulars that Katie and Idon't even know and that's such
a special.
It's been really special tokind of watch that evolve and I
(41:01):
think is another example of youknow, in wanting to start the
start something that was biggerthan ourselves.
That's kind of being in EastHampton kind of helps us be able
to do that.
There's also a really nicekinship and camaraderie of the
year-round businesses that existin East Hampton.
That's really fun to just bepart of like a genuinely, you
know, kind and nice other groupof business owners and operators
(41:22):
who are loyal to the East Endcommunity.
So it's taken us a few years tokind of figure out how the
stores can be the same and howthey can be different, and just
kind of letting them bedifferent and have their own
vibe.
You know, people who areshopping in East Hampton Village
are looking for a slightlydifferent thing than people who
are just off the beach inAmagansett who are coming to run
(41:44):
around in the yard with theirkids.
So there's some overlap butit's actually it's nice to kind
of have that Venn diagram ofgrabbing both groups of people
Overlap, but it's actually it'snice to kind of have that Venn
diagram of grabbing both groupsof people.
Brian Sheehan (41:52):
Well, it's impressive that you've been able
to I mean, so much of whatyou're doing and have done is so
impressive, and the fact thatyou've been able to figure out a
retail strategy thatcomplements and has now, you
know, been able to expand andgrow the reach of the brand is
just really amazing.
So I want to thank you fortaking the time with me and with
(42:17):
us today, and we'll certainlybe on the lookout for
potentially future Amber Wavesstore locations and other
neighborhoods.
Amanda Merrow (42:24):
I think, yeah, keep your eye out.
Well, that's great, and yeah,and we encourage, you know,
anyone who's listening, who hasthe, you know, the opportunity
to get to the East End to comesee us.
We're open year round and youknow something that Katie and I
have said since the beginningabout Amber Waves and about what
our you know, our life's workis that this is supposed to be
fun, and it truly that is what'sdriven us for the last 17 years
(42:46):
is this is so fun for us?
Katie Baldwin (42:56):
And also that retail is detail.
Brian, we really appreciate youhelping us share our mission
and message and story and it isone that is unique to us, but I
think that there are manyapplicable lessons and stories
within the Amber Waves arc thathopefully there are some nugget
takeaways for your audience thatcan be inspiring.
If somebody is thinking about,in an entrepreneurial sense,
(43:18):
taking something on and openingtheir doors in a retail shop
capacity, we say do it.
Brian Sheehan (43:24):
I'd love it.
Katie Baldwin (43:25):
Don't wait.
Brian Sheehan (43:29):
Thank you for joining me on Retail Intel.
Thank you for joining me onRetail Intel.
Be sure to check out AmberWaves in person and on Instagram
at Amber Waves Farm.
Whether you are an aspiringreal estate mogul, a seasoned
pro or simply curious about theplaces where we shop, dine, play
and work, this podcast is yourall-access pass to the world of
(43:51):
commercial real estate.
Connect with me on LinkedIn and, if you're interested in being
a part of the Retail Intelpodcast, send a message to
nationalaccounts atphillipsedisoncom.
If you want to hear more aboutnew and expanding brands like
Amber Waves Farm, keep tuninginto Retail Intel and please
(44:13):
subscribe, follow, like andrepost.
Talk to you next time.
And that's how we started to think about what
products we would carry and why.
What complements what we weregrowing?
What builds the basket?
What do people need?
And I think you know, in thecontext of being vertically
integrated and having an on-siteretail market, there are you
know it's a very narrowpercentage of vegetables that
(00:25):
are retail ready.
They have to be nearly perfectin appearance, no nicks or dings
or scratches, or, you know,they really have to look
exceptional for retail.
And a way that we decided toexpand our product offerings
beyond raw fruits and vegetablesis to create a kitchen within
(00:46):
the retail market to start toprocess vegetables into
value-added prepared foods.
And I think that evolution isimportant to point out for us
because, while we were retailingraw fruits and vegetables, the
customer demand trend that came,especially in the last several
years, is that people's desirefor prepared foods, prepared
(01:10):
salads, prepared vegetabledishes in a retail context is
something that we now leanreally heavily on.
Brian Sheehan (01:18):
Welcome to Retail Intel, the podcast where we
dive deep into the dynamic worldof commercial real estate.
I'm your host, brian Sheehan,and I'm thrilled to be your
guide on this journey throughthe bustling streets of retail,
the aisles of shopping centersand the world of commercial
property investment.
Today I'm excited to welcomethe co-founders of Amber Waves
(01:40):
Farm, katie Baldwin and AmandaMerrow, to the show.
Waves Farm, katie Baldwin andAmanda Marrow to the show.
Amber Waves is a growing,non-profit teaching farm market
and farm shop that unites foodand community to provide
educational opportunities inagriculture for aspiring growers
, thoughtful cooks and eaters ofall ages.
(02:00):
From humble beginnings tobecoming a cornerstone of
multiple communities, theirjourney is truly inspiring.
I'm eager to learn more abouttheir story and the incredible
impact of Amber Waves Farm.
Yeah, well, let's jump rightinto it.
I'd love to start with yourbackground.
So can you tell us more aboutkind of your career journeys and
(02:22):
then what ultimately led you tostart Amber Waves?
Katie Baldwin (02:26):
Amanda, you go first.
Amanda Merrow (02:28):
Okay, well, I you know I was fortunate to find
agriculture really just afterundergrad, right after I
finished college.
I graduated in 2007 fromHamilton College with a degree
in economics and environmentalstudies and thought that I
wanted to do something in theworld of economic development,
microfinance, women'sempowerment, something in the
(02:49):
developing world, you know, tohelp people.
And this thing happens whenyou're a new graduate, where you
can't get a job withoutexperience and you can't get
experience without a job.
You're in this kind of tricky,tight spot.
And so I was looking around forsomething to do to get myself
some experience, so that I'd bequalified for something else,
essentially.
And someone recommended to methat I check out Quail Hill Farm
(03:10):
, which is where Katie and I metin Amagansett, about 500 yards
from where Amber Waves is now,and I went and interviewed with
Scott Chaskey, who then becameour mentor, and decided to do a
season-long farmingapprenticeship to kind of learn
the ins and outs of agriculture,thinking that I would take that
experience to do something else.
(03:30):
But then, in fact, whathappened that season is that I
completely fell in love with thework.
I just was like kind of sweptoff my feet by it, and by July
of that year Katie and I werereally scheming of how it was
that we could continue to farmtogether and to farm in
Amagansett, you know, on theeast end of Long Island, and I
(03:52):
really never looked back afterthat.
So I certainly didn't set outto be a farmer, I you know I
wanted to make the world abetter place.
I wasn't quite sure how and Ijust I feel so fortunate that I
kind of stumbled into itaccidentally as a 22 year old.
Brian Sheehan (04:07):
Katie, anything you want to add to that
background?
Katie Baldwin (04:10):
Yeah, my journey is a little bit different about
how I arrived at Quail Hill.
I graduated from the Universityof Southern California with a
degree in internationalrelations and I had an interest
in taking a career on the pathof working in diplomacy, foreign
service, non-governmentalorganizations, and so I took a
(04:31):
job experience in the real worldof how is policy made.
Being in a think tankenvironment post-graduation gave
(04:54):
me the opportunity to haveexposure to other fields,
including public health, and Ihad not gained any experience
with that arena in my studies.
But I started to make theconnections and my own personal
interest in public health whatthat means on the international
level, what it means on thelocal level, and how does food
(05:15):
play into it?
I had a particular interest infood, and so a friend
recommended that I just scratchthat itch and go start talking
to farmers at the Union SquareFarmers Market.
And what I started to uncover?
There was these hardworkingfolks who'd been up since 2 am,
who had loaded up their trucksand traveled up to sometimes
(05:39):
nearly four or five hours tosell their wares under a tent to
millions of people in fourhours time, and they did it with
an upbeat smile and passionthat I could not believe they
were taking time to talk with meabout their favorite tomato and
how they grew their garlic, andit was something that really
stuck with me, because talkabout excellent salespeople they
(06:02):
do not want to go home withthat food, they want to tell you
the story of how they grew itand they want to tell you how
good it tastes and they want youto buy it.
And they do it convincingly andlovingly.
And so I think what captured meat that time was I am
interested in food.
I don't know a lot about whereour food comes from.
These people love what they do.
These farmers love what they do.
(06:24):
It's hard.
These people love what they do.
These farmers love what they do.
It's hard, but it's fun andit's good work.
And so then I started to explorehow does one become a farmer?
I'm not a farmer, I was not onthis path.
So you can go back to school,you can go to graduate school
and sit in the classroom andunderstand it kind of from the
academic soil scienceperspective, or you can
literally get your hands dirtyin.
What I discovered is anapprenticeship program model
(06:47):
where you work at a farm for ayear, which is ultimately what I
ended up choosing to do to testit out to see.
You know.
Well, if I'm going to be infood policy, I better understand
what it's like to start growingfood from seed.
What is even the process andhow does it work on the very
(07:08):
micro level?
And so I took an apprenticeshipat Quail Hill Farm and met
Amanda there.
Brian Sheehan (07:14):
It's fascinating that neither of you really set
out to become farmers per se andended up having this shared
experience.
And then what was it at QuailHill that made you think you
know we should go start our ownthing?
Was that part of the program?
I mean, they were reallytraining you to go out and do
this on your own.
Amanda Merrow (07:34):
Well, I think that you know, starting in the
middle of that season, we werethinking, well, how can we just
keep farming by any meansnecessary?
And there wasn't necessarilylike a forward career path
available at that time for us atQuail Hill, for us to stay for
a second season.
And in looking around at theother farms on the east end, it
didn't really feel like they hadjobs for people like us who
(07:54):
were inexperienced, and westarted just kind of fantasizing
about the type of farm we couldhave if it was our own farm.
So we were thinking about, youknow, a fabric farm or a pizza
farm or you know someexperiential, fantastical place,
because when you're, you know,when you're working side by side
in a farm field, your hands arebusy but your mind is not.
And so there's really there'skind of no better place to make
(08:14):
a real connection with yourcolleagues and coworkers, which
is how Katie and I became soclose that season.
And so we started really kindof scheming about this.
And so we started really kindof scheming about this, and when
we were talking about kind ofdaydreaming about the sort of
farm that we would have, we weretalking and reflecting on the
diversity of the East End foodshed.
So where we are here at the East, on the eastern end of Long
(08:37):
Island, has a tremendously richheritage of agriculture here,
and so it's fruits andvegetables and, of course,
seafood and meat and eggs anddairy.
And no one, when we were goingkind of through the you know,
the food pyramid, we wererealizing, huh, no one really is
growing grains or certainly notorganic grains for culinary
(08:57):
consumption.
People are growing cover cropgrains, and so that really kind
of piqued our interest and wewere very friendly at the time
with a baker who'd had asourdough starter that he
started in Amagansett in the1950s, that was still alive, and
we learned a lot from him andkind of his.
You know, we kind of hooked onthis concept of wheat and grains
(09:19):
and thought, oh, that might bekind of the hook, that might be
the niche for us if we're goingto start our own farm, something
that might differentiateourselves from our neighbors but
also help to shore up andstrengthen the East End's food
shed, you know, in terms ofdiversifying the products that
are grown here.
So we went about, we startedthinking really seriously about
starting Amber Waves and then,of course, in 2008 was the
(09:41):
financial crisis and so, as wildas it kind of seemed to start
our own farm with one year ofexperience, our friends who'd
taken more traditional careerpaths were kind of losing their
jobs left and right and it justseemed like actually spending
your career growing food foryourself and others didn't
actually seem and, given thecontext of the time, didn't
(10:02):
actually seem as risky as it mayhave in other economic
environments, and so we decidedto just go for it.
So we submitted a business planin response to a public request
for proposals.
That went out the year that wewere apprentices on a newly
preserved piece of farmland andwe were awarded a three-year
lease on it, and we just pickedourselves up and went around the
(10:23):
corner and started Amber Wavesin March of 2009.
Brian Sheehan (10:26):
So there's a lot of different pieces to Amber
Waves Farm and I'm curious howdo you describe to people in a
nutshell you know, sort of likeyour mission and then all the
things that you do and providein the community?
Amanda Merrow (10:43):
It's hard to wrap it up in a few sentences.
I usually lead by tellingpeople that we're a teaching
farm.
So Amber Waves is a 501c3nonprofit organization, you know
, with no owners.
Katie and I are the co-foundersand co-directors and on our
board of directors, but it'sreally.
It's a farm that exists toteach people about food and that
takes shape in grower education, so new farmer training through
(11:05):
our apprenticeship program, andthen eater education, which of
course is everybody, becauseeverybody eats.
But we really what wespecialize in?
Young children, but we haveprograms and experiences for
people of all ages.
So if when I'm when I'm tryingto wrap Amber waves up into a
couple sentences, you know we'rea teaching farm a mile from the
ocean on Eastern long Island on35 acres with a roadside market
(11:28):
and kitchen and robust kidsprogramming it's kind of the way
to say it which I think takespeople a minute to digest.
But that's, that's who we areand what we do.
Brian Sheehan (11:36):
And a farm shop as well, right.
Amanda Merrow (11:39):
Yes, yeah, a roadside, yeah, a roadside farm
market.
Brian Sheehan (11:41):
Yeah, okay.
Amanda Merrow (11:43):
Yeah, the you know retail Right.
Brian Sheehan (11:53):
Well, and that's the emphasis on retail intel,
and I think I probably firstheard about Amber Waves oh maybe
a year ago and was reallyinterested in kind of the story
behind some of the products thatsort of became kind of like
viral basically and really tookoff and helped tell the story
about Amber Waves to the rest ofthe world.
I wonder if you wouldn't mindtalking about that for a second.
Let's start with, I guess, howdoes the retail component of
(12:19):
your business support themission behind it?
How integral is it to yourbusiness, maybe from a shared
revenue perspective?
Does the farm work without themarket?
Vice versa, a big part of ourtenant mix.
We call them neighbors but likeour neighbor mix, you know, we
(12:39):
always have a grocery store andthen we have other retail stores
and service providers alongsideof those.
You guys are unique, it wouldbe in our world is that the
farm's there with the marketplus some other retail that goes
along with it?
Right, like, how does that allfit together?
Katie Baldwin (12:53):
Well, we are unique in that we are a
vertically integratedorganization.
So that we start seeding plants, we start I'll use salad as an
example so we start seedinglettuce on the property in a
greenhouse, the farmers grow itand wash it and walk it to the
(13:13):
kitchen, which is also on site,where they begin to process it,
make dressings for retail and todress the salad.
And then the salad can go outthrough the door, either in a
packaged to-go container througha retail market or be ordered
off of a menu through a cafe orrestaurant style embedded in the
retail.
So I would describe it.
(13:35):
So I think the verticalintegration part, the retail
being the last touch point.
But we have been creating theproduct on site for months
already.
So the integration of the retailcame later.
We were farmers first.
Our version of retail early onwas going to farmers markets off
(13:55):
site and in a weekly contextand selling our wares.
And we had the opportunity tostart a retail market on the
farm seven years later, after wehad already started.
Later after we had alreadystarted, and it felt like a
(14:15):
moment in time where we didn'thave retail experience outside
of a weekly farmer's market butthe opportunity to increase our
revenue through retail salesseemed like it happened at the
right time in our growth arc.
We needed it to continue.
We needed the retail revenue tocontinue to grow the
organization.
Amanda, do you want to add tothat concept of vertical
(14:39):
integration retail on site?
Amanda Merrow (14:41):
Yeah, our market now is kind of a huge bustling
year round brick and mortarinstitution.
But for the first seven yearsthat we farmed, katie and I went
to the farmer's market and, youknow, became those people that
Katie was talking about at UnionSquare.
I mean, we weren't going toUnion Square, we were going to
the town green in Montauk once aweek and, you know, selling
(15:01):
produce to people in theirbathing suits right off the
beach.
But Katie and I have alwaysreally loved commerce.
We love displays, we lovemarketing, you know we love
signage, we love a display box,we love displays, we love
marketing.
We, you know we love signage,we love we just we we love a
display box, we love a falsebottom, we love cascading, you
know, kale and tomatoes out ofbaskets, and so we always really
were drawn to that and that waskind of it was such a fun day
(15:22):
for us off the farm on Thursdaysfor the.
You know, for the first sevenyears that we farmed together
and I think the thing that wereally like, kind of the hook
that we got in those early years, was getting immediate customer
feedback about what peoplewanted and what the new food
trends were, which would kind ofinform us of how we might build
our displays but also how we'dbuild our crop list in the
(15:43):
following year, like I rememberkind of you know that when
shishito peppers started tobecome a thing and Japanese
eggplant started started tobecome a thing and people would
start asking more about this andwe'd kind of feel a trend
coming and that was so fun.
So by the time that we were ableto open our market on site,
when we had the opportunity tobuy our farmland and there was a
brick and mortar market on thefarmland which had previously
(16:05):
been separated and isolated fromthe farm, but under Amber
Wave's ownership the two havebeen linked back together we had
this kind of like desire anddrive to sell things, but not at
the scale that we're doing now.
It's much more, you know, muchmore extreme than our 10 by 20
once a week tent.
Brian Sheehan (16:26):
There's so many interesting pieces to that and I
didn't think about, kind oflike the lead time in your
product selection curationprocess that you know a customer
asks for a particular type ofproduce, you go out and find the
seeds, you plant those, you seeif they grow well Next year,
(16:46):
next year you can offer it, youknow, and there's similar lead
times and kind of every productthat any merchant is going to
sell, right, I guess.
When we back up a second,though, so you know to your
point, everybody is a foodconsumer, nearly everybody buys
groceries or produce at somepoint, right, and there's
(17:06):
something really unique aboutyour model and so far as you get
to buy it right where it'sproduced, where it's grown, and
it's very experiential and I'mcurious that's such a big part
of the retail environment today.
How important was that for you,transitioning from the farmers
(17:28):
markets to having your own kindof quote, unquote brick and
mortar store?
Did you think about it being avery experiential type of retail
experience?
Amanda Merrow (17:38):
Well, in the years that when we were going to
the weekly farmer's market, wealso had weekly CSA pickups at
our farm, so we kind of alreadyhad like these two separate
customers.
We had people coming to thefarm every week to pick up their
community supported agricultureshares, you know, so they
bought in at the beginning ofthe season.
You sign up for a weekly box ofvegetables.
We also offered pick your ownflowers as included in your
(18:00):
membership alongside that.
So Katie and I were used tohosting people on the farm for
an experiential day with usalready and we loved that too.
And so really kind of bringingretail on site really kind of
merged those two, the two thingsthat we were already doing.
Brian Sheehan (18:17):
Gotcha, what led to kind of the actual what was
the idea behind transitioninginto a physical storefront that
you owned or controlled, youknow, right next to the site,
and how did you navigate it?
So you're leasing farm land,correct, and then want to
co-locate a store on site, canyou talk a little bit about that
(18:40):
process?
Katie Baldwin (18:41):
The idea of having a retail location on farm
for us became something that wesaw ourselves being able to
grow into it.
The market itself, the buildingitself, already existed on the
property, but there was anothergrocery operator in the space.
So we had the opportunity toenvision we're vegetable farmers
(19:05):
and we can supply all thefruits and vegetables to that
market.
We can do that, but it was adifferent transition than to
take on about a 3,000 squarefoot retail building that had
traditionally been a seasonalmarket to service our customers
from the months of really likeMay to September, super highly
(19:28):
seasonal.
What would it be like to expandthe Amber Waves experience so
that when they're picking uptheir vegetables through the
community supported agriculturesubscription retail model
essentially to go next door, tocreate a retail experience that
could complement what we weregrowing.
So we started to think about,as retailers, the fruits and
(19:52):
vegetables, the plants that wewere growing are the center, the
heart of the market.
It's almost the inverse of atraditional grocery retail
experience where you find thecenter of the market is dry
packaged or frozen goods.
We were the opposite.
We had heavy emphasis on fresh.
It was our whole world.
It's all we knew.
We spent time growing food thatwas going to expire or start
(20:17):
decomposing in 72 hours.
So we were really good atinventory turns of fresh produce
that we were growing and wewanted to keep that ethos and
keep that at the core center ofour market.
But what we discovered is thatwe had the opportunity to build
out our customer's basket to saythey were committed to finding
(20:39):
highly seasonal, nutrient-densevegetables from us, but that
they also wanted a dressing fortheir salad and they also wanted
balsamic and olive oil to topdress their tomatoes and they
also wanted a nice sea salt.
So essentially for the homecook, we built a really nice
market with the vegetables beingat the core, but for home cooks
(21:01):
who wanted to round out a meal.
And that's how we started tothink about what products we
would carry and why whatcomplements what we were growing
.
To think about what products wewould carry and why what
complements what we were growing, what builds the basket?
What do people need?
And I think you know, in thecontext of being vertically
integrated and having an on-siteretail market, there are you
(21:22):
know it's a very narrowpercentage of vegetables that
are retail ready.
They have to be nearly perfectin appearance that are retail
ready.
They have to be nearly perfectin appearance no nicks or dings
or scratches, or, you know, theyreally have to look exceptional
for retail.
And a way that we decided toexpand our product offerings
beyond raw fruits and vegetablesis to create a kitchen within
(21:47):
the retail market to start toprocess vegetables into
value-added prepared foods.
And I think that evolution isimportant to point out for us
because while we were retailingraw fruits and vegetables, the
customer demand trend that came,especially in the last several
years, is that people's desirefor prepared foods, prepared
(22:11):
salads, prepared vegetabledishes in a retail context is
something that we now leanreally heavily on in terms of
production, with a kitchenthat's associated with the
retail market and also is amajor revenue driver for the
retail market.
Brian Sheehan (22:28):
Yeah, we see that in our portfolio certainly
doesn't seem to be kind of goingaway and you felt really well
positioned to be able to developthose products because you had
the ingredients and it wasn't astretch to build out a kitchen
inside the 3,000 square footspace.
Amanda Merrow (22:47):
There had been a kitchen which had been abandoned
in the kind of in the few yearsbefore we took over the market.
So there was a space for it.
But we put in ovens and a rangeand, you know, entering the
retail was, like you know, ahugely steep learning curve.
And then opening a kitchen ayear later was another huge,
(23:08):
just bite of the apple for us ofhow to figure out how to make
that work as well.
Katie Baldwin (23:14):
I think to circle back, since we're an
educational institution.
We did know and we hadexperienced that one of the best
ways to educate eaters is I'lluse wheat, the Amber Waves
namesake we started growinggrains.
One of the best ways to educatean eater about the story of a
grain is while they're having awhole wheat blueberry muffin.
(23:36):
I mean it really cements thefood story such that Amanda can
describe how complex it was toseed the grain in October and
the nine months of care it tookto grow the whole wheat and that
we milled it into whole wheatflour.
And what is whole wheat flour?
It's in your muffin right nowthat we baked five minutes ago.
(23:58):
So this living, breathingretail experience that is full
sensory in the market iscomplemented with the farmer
telling you here's how I didthat, here's how I made that for
you.
The farmer telling you here'show I did that, here's how I
made that for you.
And I think what we'vediscovered is there's just a
(24:21):
different level of appreciationfor food that our customers have
because they know their farmerand they can ask them questions
and they have an appreciationfor the whole story arc of the
muffin, from seeding it inOctober to eating it 10 months
later and enjoying it.
And that sort of food educationis the underpinning of the
(24:42):
whole organization.
Brian Sheehan (24:43):
That's incredible .
It's such a core part of how tobe successful in retail today,
kind of what you just described,which is having that level of
knowledge and passion for theproduct on the shelf and being
able to translate that to yourcustomer in a way that creates a
(25:04):
connection.
That's kind of unlike what youfind a lot of times throughout
our economy, right, and I guessI'm so curious about the retail
component of the business, notjust because it evolved
naturally for you it sounds likebut it sounds like it's really
integral to the success andsupporting the farm.
(25:26):
And I'm curious if you can talka little bit about how they
support each other sort of notmaybe specifically the economics
of it, but how do you thinkabout that dynamic and that
relationship?
Could this model work for anyother nonprofit that's in a
similar sort of situation, maybein another geography, any other
(25:50):
part of America?
Really?
Amanda Merrow (25:53):
be in another geography, any other part of
America.
Really Well, I think somethingthat's like fun and exciting
about small farms and whythey're so important in the you
know, in the fabric ofstrengthening regional food
systems around the country, isthat they're nimble and they can
adapt to what their localcommunity kind of demands and
calls for in a way that well,just in a way that can be really
helpful.
So that means opening a storethat is suitable for the
customers that live there andsupporting, you know, food
(26:16):
security challenges in their owncommunities.
They're just nimble and able toadapt kind of immediately.
So I think, in terms of youknow if would an exact carbon
copy of Amber Waves exist inrural Iowa?
Perhaps not, but there is amodel that would.
There is a model, I think, thatcould be a cousin of ours that
would work.
So, and in terms of I mean totouch on the vertical
(26:37):
integration piece, I thinkhaving knowing that we are in
control of how things look onthe shelf at the end gives us
this control over really whatour crop list is.
So a fun thing that we sell atour market is edible flowers and
these little packages that arebeautiful to put in a salad or
to put on cupcakes, and that wemake summer rolls in our kitchen
(26:58):
that and you can see themthrough the rice paper wrappers
and they're absolutely beautiful.
They have a short shelf life.
I mean, like how you would getthose from a farm field into a
conventional grocery store wouldreally be a challenge, but
we're able to do that, and so Ithink this vertical integration
of being the end retailertalking to the end user gives us
the opportunity to grow reallyfun and exciting things that we
(27:19):
otherwise wouldn't if they weregoing on a wholesale truck and
certainly most people are, youknow, have to buy things that
are coming off of a truck.
But I think that you know, ingoing to a local farm market, a
local farm stand, you are goingto find things that you don't
find in other places, and so Ithink that the fact that we have
unique items that are comingout of the field really drives
(27:39):
people into the retail space.
And then the fact that we areour own middleman helps us take
kind of take margin at everysingle pass where we would
otherwise be wholesaling ortrekking stuff off site enables
us to kind of keep that marginfor a stronger revenue profile
at the market that ends up.
We I mean, as you know, as anon-profit we're reliant on
grants and contributions andprivate funding that we seek off
(28:03):
the farm, but we think ofourselves and our retail market
as our own biggest donor andwe're able to do that because of
the market.
So that's a really helpfulpiece to our kind of financial
resiliency, I think,particularly now with what's
going on nationally, with peoplewho were reliant on federal
funding and kind of seeing thatfunding evaporate and are
wondering what the future oftheir organizations are, we will
(28:27):
be able to pivot in the waysthat we need, because we're so
diversified in terms of the, youknow of our top line revenue
the mix between children'seducational programming, retail
sales, sales from our kitchen,nonprofit funding that we're
able to kind of mix those in apot that can shift a little bit
from year to year.
It gives us some control.
That makes us feel a littlemore comfortable.
Brian Sheehan (28:50):
Well, I think one of the ways I originally became
aware of Amber Waves wasthrough your hat and some of
your apparel, and I'm curious,kind of to your point about how
important that is.
Do you think about Amber Wavesbecoming a brand per se?
You know, in terms of apparel,and that you know that is a way
(29:14):
not just to expand your missionbut to also grow the brand
nationally, internationally,that you know this is a way to
help support and diversify yourrevenue stream further.
Is that something you're reallyleaning into?
Katie Baldwin (29:26):
I think it is.
But I think the reason it'sworking is because it came from
such, I mean, much of what we'vetalked about already.
It just started from such anauthentic place and the story of
the hat just comes from.
We're farmers working in thefarm field and we need a hat.
And I was wearing a differenthat that said something else on
it and people kept asking us isthat the name of your farm?
(29:46):
And we're like no, it's not.
I guess we should print ourfarm name on a hat.
No, it's not, I guess we shouldprint our farm name on a hat.
So I mean, from that context itjust became, you know, I mean
that old adage, necessity is themother of invention.
We had to wear hats in the fieldor outside in the sun for 12
hours a day.
We were wearing a comfortable,breathable hat that we thought
was like tolerably stylish atthe time, and what happened was
(30:10):
we gave them away to our CSAmembers for a while and then we
were like hmm, like we need tomake, we can't be losing money
on this, so why don't we likeself-serve, like leave a $10
bill in a little bucket and takeyour hat?
And it was like our 18s.
It was people who were joiningour club as people who were
(30:31):
supporting a local farm and theywere proud to do it and it was
their way of saying I'm proud ofthis, I'm proud to be
supporting this, about the ideaof their place in the food chain
(30:53):
, as eaters wanting to supportlocal farmers, that they will
wear a brand that says the farmname on it, and that became a
thing in Amagansett.
It was almost like I'm notgoing to wear a Nike hat, I'm
going to wear an Amber Wavesfarm hat.
And so the growth of that.
Over time I think it became likehey, do you know Katie and
Amanda and they started AmberWaves and I'm going to wear
(31:16):
their hat to support them andhelp get their mission and
message out there.
That was the origin story of it,but I think what it has become
for us is still very much that.
I mean we still think of it asa way to communicate why it's
important to support your localfarmer, and if you're going to
wear an Amber Waves hat insteadof any other brand, then good,
(31:38):
please, be our Amber Basseterand wear it and tell the story
of why it's important to supportyour local farmer.
So I think Amanda and I, for along time we were reluctant to
even say oh, we're a brand.
We are, we have created a brand, but we've done it over time in
a way that kind of much likeour personalities, is just
authentic and meaningful in thatit is an avenue to tell, is an
(32:03):
avenue for education.
Really, if people say what isAmber Waves Farm, then it's the
hat, is a prompt to be able toshare our work.
Brian Sheehan (32:12):
It's so important .
You really can't fabricate thatkind of authenticity, and the
authenticity is what helps makethe brand itself successful and
grow and something that peoplewant to be a part of over time.
And then thinking about goingforward, how do we want to
expand that, our reach?
Thinking about the future, Iguess what are your growth goals
(32:34):
over the next five years?
What's in store for Amber WavesFarm?
Do you envision having, youknow, more physical retail
locations as part of that?
How are you going to continueto grow this?
Amanda Merrow (32:45):
We opened a second location a couple years
ago in East Hampton Village, sojust about five miles from the
home base of the farm, andthat's been really fun.
It's fun to be in a second spot.
I think that the expansion thatKatie and I are really thinking
about in the next five years isactually on-property expansion.
We farm 35 acres 10 of those weown and the 10 that we own is
largely open to the public.
(33:06):
That's a huge part of whatAmber Waves is From the
beginning.
One of the reasons Katie and Istarted as a nonprofit is that
we wanted to build somethingthat was bigger than the two of
us combined and that wouldoutlive us, and so we have
created a food campus that needssome infrastructure.
That needs some year-roundinfrastructure so that people
can use our campus year-round.
You know our gates are openevery day of the year, but in
(33:28):
the you know inclement weatherof February it's hard to get
people excited about being onthe farm, and so I think signage
and wayfinding and paths and abarn and some indoor growing
space and is kind of where we're.
We're looking for the nextseveral years to kind of shore
up the facilities on on site.
Brian Sheehan (33:44):
Thinking about somebody that's in a similar
situation, and I think there's agood part of our audience is a
you know, maybe first timeretail entrepreneur.
Maybe they have one locationsor multiple locations.
How do you think about growthand expansion, specifically with
your retail footprint?
(34:06):
What was it that drove you towant to open the location in
East Hampton, and what are somemetrics that you use to judge
how well that store performs?
Because your model's a littlebit unique, but in some ways,
it's also physical retail thatneeds to perform well, and so
(34:27):
how do you think about that?
Amanda Merrow (34:28):
Yeah and well, and I'll just mention that.
You know and sometimes in beinga nonprofit organization
there's kind of a little bit ofa misnomer there that we in fact
we must have a net surplus.
You know we must have a bottomline at the end of the year.
The distinction is that any netsurplus that the farm makes in
a given year is it doesn't, it'snot paid out to, you know, to
(34:48):
shareholders or partners.
It stays within theorganization and goes back in to
fund programs and capitalprojects et cetera.
So we are certainly using theretail to pay for the programs
and doing our very best to comeout on top every year.
So I'll just mention that.
So I think within the confinesof the retail operation we kind
of function like conventionalretail does.
(35:11):
We're paying close attention toour margins by department.
I think that the advice thatprobably Katie and I would give
in something we've gottenconsiderably better at in the
last five or six years iskeeping track of our data and
looking for patterns and lookinghow things grow and
understanding kind of growthtrajectory and where it feels
(35:32):
like there's opportunity forgrowth and where our costs are
both opportunity costs in termsof our time and, you know,
bandwidth and then also reallyhow much cost is allocated to
producing a certain product orlike doing something a certain
way, and I think it's.
You know the numbers.
The numbers really will set youfree.
They're scary at first, but Imean, I think that we we started
(36:00):
introducing these conceptsafter learning them in in kind
of what we call like businessnight school of, of running a
retail operation, of saying, youknow, if you're doing an
analysis on how much it costs orhow much you're making given a
given in a given crop, and yourealize you're losing money
growing something, and you haveto ask yourself, like, gosh, it
costs me $2,500 a year to growgreen beans for not making any
money on them at all.
Does it make sense for us tostill grow that thing?
(36:21):
And I think, applying thatrigor across the board, not
getting too emotionally attachedto anything that we do, so that
we can kind of identify or atthe very least identify winners
and maybe things that aresinking us but that the public
loves, and at least with thatknowledge comes the freedom of
saying gosh, this is really abreakeven product, but the
(36:43):
public loves it and everyone whocomes in to buy fill in the
blank item also buys this otheritem which is really important
for us, and so we're going tokeep it.
So I think we're paying closeattention to growth overall,
like top line growth and thengrowth within the departments or
movement within the departments, what our margin is by
department, what our grossmargin is in our store, what our
(37:04):
labor to revenue ratio is.
Those are like our key KPIs thatwe're paying attention to on a
monthly basis and we're reallyopen with sharing those numbers
with our senior leadership staffso people know exactly where
they are in terms of their spend, the margin of the department
that they are responsible for,their labor to revenue ratio.
(37:24):
It makes them think muchdifferently about the schedule.
You know, katie and I don't makethe schedule, but you know you
can really you can lose yourshirt in a month if we're slow
in a month and we and we haven'tstaffed appropriately or we may
have, you know, we may havecome out clean and instead,
whoops, we were overstaffed thewhole month and any, any surplus
that we would have made is lost.
And I think, particularly inour environment we're so hyper
(37:46):
seasonal where we have to do 75%of our revenue in 25% of the
year a lot of pressure toperform well in the high season
summer months and then to kindof trim our losses as much as we
can in the shoulder seasons andin the off season, but while
also still wanting to be aconsistent employer of our
people.
Our team is big and they'rereally loyal and they're really
(38:08):
excellent.
So that was a lot of thingsthat we're paying attention to,
but that's kind of like what astandard outline of a weekly
management meeting that Katieand I'll have touches on each of
those pieces that I justmentioned.
Katie Baldwin (38:21):
Brian, to hit on your point of the second
location, we held back and wewatched some of our other local
small business colleagues do itfirst and we had realized that
there were three businesses thatwere either core similarities
or just slightly different thanours.
(38:43):
That began to open a second andthird and even fourth location
and we started to understandthat we were going through a
tremendous amount of effort togrow and make our products and
then to add another outlet tosell them, albeit only four
(39:04):
miles away.
It's an entirely differentcustomer base.
It gives us an entirelydifferent marketing opportunity
for all of our educationalprogramming to reach those folks
and we had already gone throughthe effort of making the
product.
We thought getting that extrabump in revenue was important.
(39:26):
The note on that because we'resuch a highly seasonal place,
like Amanda said, we're usuallygoing to have a very short time
to do most of our revenue.
The second location is, we'vedetermined is important.
In being such a highly seasonalbusiness, it helps us get to
our goals.
Brian Sheehan (39:45):
Maybe the last question.
I know we're kind of runningout of time here, but thinking
about how the first you know,the farm field, market, kitchen
location really is truly adestination in every sense of
the word.
Your second location do youfeel it functions as the same
(40:05):
People view it as a destination?
Really, it's competing with alot of other retailers in a way
that doesn't have the same drawas the farm does, and I wonder
how you think about that.
Amanda Merrow (40:16):
Yeah, definitely doesn't have the same draw that
the farm does.
I mean Amber Waves, like thefarm that we steward, that
farmland is just pure magic.
Just the first time that Katieand I set foot on it we just we
fell in love with it.
And it's hard to recreate thatmagic, I think, think in any
other location, because it'sjust, you know, amber, the Amber
Waves, the original place isjust, it's our baby, we love it.
(40:38):
But I think that now that we'retwo years into, or coming into
our third season of our EastHampton store, it's starting to
kind of have its own identity.
It's a really special thing tokind of walk quietly in that
store and we don't necessarilyknow all the customers there and
to see, you know, our teamthat's in that store have their
own regulars that Katie and Idon't even know and that's such
a special.
It's been really special tokind of watch that evolve and I
(41:01):
think is another example of youknow, in wanting to start the
start something that was biggerthan ourselves.
That's kind of being in EastHampton kind of helps us be able
to do that.
There's also a really nicekinship and camaraderie of the
year-round businesses that existin East Hampton.
That's really fun to just bepart of like a genuinely, you
know, kind and nice other groupof business owners and operators
(41:22):
who are loyal to the East Endcommunity.
So it's taken us a few years tokind of figure out how the
stores can be the same and howthey can be different, and just
kind of letting them bedifferent and have their own
vibe.
You know, people who areshopping in East Hampton Village
are looking for a slightlydifferent thing than people who
are just off the beach inAmagansett who are coming to run
(41:44):
around in the yard with theirkids.
So there's some overlap butit's actually it's nice to kind
of have that Venn diagram ofgrabbing both groups of people
Overlap, but it's actually it'snice to kind of have that Venn
diagram of grabbing both groupsof people.
Brian Sheehan (41:52):
Well, it's impressive that you've been able
to I mean, so much of whatyou're doing and have done is so
impressive, and the fact thatyou've been able to figure out a
retail strategy thatcomplements and has now, you
know, been able to expand andgrow the reach of the brand is
just really amazing.
So I want to thank you fortaking the time with me and with
(42:17):
us today, and we'll certainlybe on the lookout for
potentially future Amber Wavesstore locations and other
neighborhoods.
Amanda Merrow (42:24):
I think, yeah, keep your eye out.
Well, that's great, and yeah,and we encourage, you know,
anyone who's listening, who hasthe, you know, the opportunity
to get to the East End to comesee us.
We're open year round and youknow something that Katie and I
have said since the beginningabout Amber Waves and about what
our you know, our life's workis that this is supposed to be
fun, and it truly that is what'sdriven us for the last 17 years
(42:46):
is this is so fun for us?
Katie Baldwin (42:56):
And also that retail is detail.
Brian, we really appreciate youhelping us share our mission
and message and story and it isone that is unique to us, but I
think that there are manyapplicable lessons and stories
within the Amber Waves arc thathopefully there are some nugget
takeaways for your audience thatcan be inspiring.
If somebody is thinking about,in an entrepreneurial sense,
(43:18):
taking something on and openingtheir doors in a retail shop
capacity, we say do it.
Brian Sheehan (43:24):
I'd love it.
Katie Baldwin (43:25):
Don't wait.
Brian Sheehan (43:29):
Thank you for joining me on Retail Intel.
Thank you for joining me onRetail Intel.
Be sure to check out AmberWaves in person and on Instagram
at Amber Waves Farm.
Whether you are an aspiringreal estate mogul, a seasoned
pro or simply curious about theplaces where we shop, dine, play
and work, this podcast is yourall-access pass to the world of
(43:51):
commercial real estate.
Connect with me on LinkedIn and, if you're interested in being
a part of the Retail Intelpodcast, send a message to
nationalaccounts atphillipsedisoncom.
If you want to hear more aboutnew and expanding brands like
Amber Waves Farm, keep tuninginto Retail Intel and please
(44:13):
subscribe, follow, like andrepost.
Talk to you next time.
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