HerbNet....for
everything herbal
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Founded: 1998 Location: 514 Garland Rd Winslow ME Employees: Just me with the help and support of my husband
Q: How did you start (or become owner) of
the business?
Q: What made you choose this type of
business?
Q: What is your background? Q: What are your biggest challenges as an herb business? Differentiating myself from herbalists. I consider myself an herb grower. Our goal is to concentrate on producing high quality fresh and dried herbs. We dry our herbs and store them as whole leaf until used. All our herbs are no more than 2 years old and we process our herb teas as orders are received guaranteeing the freshest possible product. Our teas are single ingredient teas meant to be enjoyed as a beverage although they can and are used medicinally. We are expanding into culinary herb blends as our drying and storage facilities expand. Q: What are the biggest rewards of being an herb business? For me going out in the field in the morning to cut fresh herbs, especially marjoram, talk about aromatherapy. Then there is turning customers on to an herb they’ve never known about. Q: What is your philosophy of customer service? Provide our customer with the highest quality freshest product available. And here “freshest” applies to both the fresh and dry herbs. Q: What makes you stand out from your competitors? Overall we are a small certified organic diversified farm. We sell herb teas year round. We sell herb and vegetable seedlings in the spring. During the growing season we supply local restaurants with herbs, edible flowers and fresh produce and we run an on-line Community Supported Agriculture Program (CSA). Unlike most CSA’s our customers can choose their level of participation. Program shares run from a minimum of $50 up to $250 and we add an additional 15% for payment before May 1st of each year. Each week customers order from our on-line internet form which lists that weeks available products and they come pick up their order on Saturday mornings. We do have a delivery service for an additional fee. Shares are non-refundable and the customers are responsible for spending down their balance before the end of the season or they loose it to the program. Our customers like this style of CSA as they choose their level of participation and it allows them to take vacation without forfeiting a weeks worth of product. We also have customers that take advantage of our on-line ordering form on a pay as they go basis.
Q: What plans do you have for your
business?
Q: Is your family supportive of your
business?
Q: What do you wish you’d done
differently with the business?
Q: What do you think people starting out
should know about getting into your type of business?
Q: How has the internet helped/hurt your
business? Q: How long has it taken for your website to pay off? Once we started the on-line CSA it just kinda took off. Tea sales still don’t move much on the web site. Q: What things have you done to promote your website? All of our promotional items e.g. business cards and brochures have our web address. We are linked with the local food and agriculture sites in the State of Maine as well as our own HGMN.
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The Herb Growing & Marketing Network |
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