09/16/2023
Next week will be the last week of production for the greenhouse at Astor Farms. Not just home deliveries, but all production in the greenhouse will stop. We made a strong run at it, but in the end, the returns for the amount of work that goes into it just isn’t worth it. I’ve met a lot of great people along the way and it has been really fun getting to know you all over the past 5 years. That’s right, we were starting up right before the Covid lockdowns began. At the beginning, all of our customers were restaurants and grocery, but that came to a screeching halt. We were throwing away thousands of heads each week right as we got up to full speed. Even food banks were closed so we couldn’t donate the lettuce. That’s when my wife suggested that she make some facebook posts and see if we could sell the lettuce directly to customers. Before I started the greenhouse, if you told me we should deliver a $6 bag of lettuce to residential customers I would have said you were crazy. It turns out that it was a fantastic idea. People jumped at the opportunity to have our lettuce delivered to their doorstep in the midst of the lockdowns. Then people found out that “good” lettuce is not what you can get in the grocery store. An almost cult following ensued. Our home delivery customers, you all, became an integral part of the business that carried us through Covid and then continued on even after the restaurants opened back up. Farming is hard and organic farming is 10 times harder. Most of you will remember the gaps in production from fungus problems. The aphids. The ladybugs that were released to eat the aphids. Adjusting to changes in the season which effected the lettuce. Etc, etc, etc. There are multiple reasons that organic produce costs more than conventional produce. It’s not a marketing gimmick. It costs more and farmers typically make less.
Please don’t be sad for us. While we have put a lot of hard work into the greenhouse operation, it was only a small part of Astor Farms. We are still the second largest indoor tilapia facility east of the Mississippi. You can find our live tilapia swimming around in aquariums in Charlotte at places like Super G Mart, Compare Foods and a number of other Asian and Hispanic retailers. Remember, only buy our fish out of the aquarium. It will not be on ice or frozen. They will clean the fish however you like. Our fish travel all over the East Coast.
I know that I will be bombarded with emails asking if I know where people can go to buy fresh, local, organic lettuce like we produced. Unfortunately, I do not. Another great longstanding operation, Tega Hills, closed down just a few months ago. There are definitely other local small farmers and you should try to support them if possible, but there isn’t anyone close by that did things the way we did.
You can always reach me by email or through our page. I’ll work on getting refunds to those of you who have prepaid orders past next week.
Support your local farmers. Support local independent retailers. Buy local when you can.
So for the last time, Happy Fri-YAY and I hope you all have a wonderful weekend. We will be on our regularly scheduled deliveries for next week, but on 9/22 the lights go out.
