Focus on Coop Suppliers:
Tierra Farm

by Suzanne Fisher

Honest Weight Food Coop has made a practice of and is privileged to purchase much of its inventory from smaller and/or local companies and farmers. All of these providers have different histories and vary in their approach to doing business. Tierra Farm is no exception. It began here in Albany several years ago with one graduate student who became interested in farming organically, and then developed a business to help support that farm. Gunther Fishgold is now the primary owner. Tierra Farm, which sells $4 million worth of products a year, is located in Valatie, about 45 minutes east of Albany. Its products are vegan and 100% organic.

Most shoppers at Honest Weight have noticed the Tierra Farm nuts, dried fruits and mixes in our store. Their products are fresh because they have a very high rate of turnover in their factory, selling everything within 23 days of its arrival at their facility. Recently you may have also noticed their raw cacao nibs and sun-dried Chinese gogi berries on the shelves of the bulk aisles. Tierra Farm continues to market new items in mixes or on their own, such as the new maple-sweetened almond and cashew butters. They are also working on a line of organic fruit juicesweetened dried cranberries, blueberries and sour cherries, as well as an organic chocolate sweetened with grain instead of sugar.

Tierra Farm purchases as many of their ingredients as they can regionally or within the United States. Gunther actually visits 85% of the places that Tierra Farm buys from.

To select ingredients, Tierra farms searches out products that are produced using fair trade and good labor practices. Price is not considered as relevant as the quality of the produce and the sustainability of the business relationship.

Gunther says that his company does 95% or more of its business with coops. They deliver about 40% of what they sell by truck themselves , and send the rest by UPS. Hannaford Bros. has asked to sell their products in its supermarkets, but Tierra Farm has a policy of not doing business with corporations. Gunther likes working with coops because he finds that he can communicate with them easily — they buy in large volume, they like his demos and their customers are committed to the kinds of foods he sells.

Gunther points out that, unlike coops, corporations are in business to satisfy shareholders — that is, to make as much money for them as possible. As a result, they do not need to treat employees well or be concerned about their customers’ welfare. They also have an incentive to try to dictate to their suppliers what to sell and how to run their businesses for the corporation’s benefit. A well-publicized example of this is Wal-Mart.

According to Gunther, another not-so-well publicized example is United Natural Foods, the main supplier to almost all of the same coops that Tierra Farm supplies, and the largest natural foods supplier in the world. He says United is already dictating what items coops can put on sale at what times, and that it is dropping many of its specialty items that do not produce the volume of sales it would like.

He is also concerned that other large corporations who are customers of United might make demands that United stop doing business with the coops, because those coops are part of their competition. And he points out that other large corporations, such as Sysco, might at any time negotiate a purchase of United Natural Foods to further consolidate their assets and power.

Although this scenario seems dismal, Gunther cited Star Coop in Ithaca as an example of a coop that has made a concerted effort to wean itself away from United Natural Foods. It has purchased its own warehouse for extra storage and is now dealing directly with some of the producers of the foods it sells, instead of buying entirely from United. It has striven to keep its suppliers diverse and local, as Honest Weight has done throughout its years in business.

Tierra Farm’ history is as grassroots as its business policies. As a graduate student in Albany, Gunther worked with NYCAP and became interested in the links between pesticide use and disease. He decided that he would like to farm organically, and did so for a couple of years with a friend near Ithaca. Then, in 1993, he bought his own farm in Skaneateles and ran an organic CSA with 165 members for six years. During that time he began to sell nuts and dried fruits to support his farm in the off-season, and that business grew quickly into Tierra Farm. Recently, Tierra purchased the former Rapunzel distribution center, outfitted it with 5,000 sq.ft. of cooler space, and cleaned up the ten acres on which it is situated.

Today, Tierra Farm employs 12 fulltime workers who receive full benefits. Employees also enjoy quarterly profit sharing. Gunther hopes that, in the future, Tierra Farm will evolve into an employee- owned and operated business.

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