Flower Farming Business Models: The CSA Subscription
A Community Supported Agriculture subscription (known as a CSA subscription) is commonly known among vegetable farmers and edible shares, but is maybe less common among flower farmers. Which is a shame - because it’s a great business model and one that is very easy for beginning flower farmers to start as a business!
A CSA is simply a fancy name for a weekly bouquet or arrangement that your customer pays for ahead of time for a set amount of weeks.
This involves a implicit agreement between the subscriber and the grower in which the subscriber commits to purchasing a set amount of product from the grower before the season starts.
This “pre-paid” subscription does two things. First and foremost, it provides an income stream for the grower at a time of year when it’s very much needed - prior to the growing season, allowing growers to invest in seeds, plugs, and the equipment necessary for the operation.
Secondly, it also ensures that the grower commits to growing and the subscriber commits to purchasing. No debating or need to constantly push sales - there are a set number of subscriptions, and that’s it.
There are a couple different types of CSA’s that I’ve seen. The first and most common is the “grower’s choice” bouquets or arrangements. It’s quite literally anything that is available to the grower to provide a seasonal arrangement for the customer. It may be different materials every week, or different combinations depending on what you have to offer, but it allows you to put together the arrangements without any real restrictions as far a design or the materials included.
There are other more specialized subscriptions that you can offer. Some flower farmers offer specialized shares that run for a shorter time period - such as a “spring bloom” CSA share that provides four weeks of ranunculus and anemones or a dahlia share that provides four weeks of dahlia bouquets, or even an herb share that provides subscribers with beautifully scented and visually stunning bouquets.
Advantages of CSA’s
One of the advantages of CSA subscriptions is the fact that once you have enough of your subscribers, you’re good to go. They will have committed to buying your flowers ahead of time, which means that the only thing left to do is ensure you concentrate on the growing to provide good product to the CSA customers.
This can be a huge advantage because of the fact that you’re not having to move product every week and using different income streams and different sale avenues - it’s already done, allowing you to just focus on producing materials.
Another advantage of CSA’s is that it isn’t dependent upon the whims of the everchanging tastes of the floral designer or the retail customer. A retail customer may opt not to purchase your bouquet when at the farmer’s market because she spent a lot on a local goat cheese that week. A floral desiger may not buy from you because they haven’t needed any blush flowers for the months of July and August.
One of the best advantages of a CSA is that it is very easy and very straightforward! No design skills required, no setup required for a farmer’s market (with the associated investment in the display and setup) and can be used to support a very small farm that doesn’t require a large amount of volume - if you just need to produce 10-20 bouquets per week, you can produce this all out of a very small area very easily.
A CSA is also a great way for friends and family to support your business - if you’re just getting started, this is a great way to have your others support your venture in a way that is very straightforward.
Disadvantages of CSA’s
One of the disadvantages of CSA’s is also one of its benefits - the set monetary contribution means that you don’t have any room for additional income from that stream. It’s not like selling to a florist (where you can sell extra materials easily) or selling at a farmer’s market (where you can increase your sales by attracting more people to your booth). You get the set amount of money for the set amount of bouquets, and that’s it.
If you’re looking to grow your farm income beyond the CSA subscriptions, you may want to find a different model. Although it’s consistent, it does have a very short glass ceiling when it comes to income and profitability - so if you’re looking to increase or have a more variable first year of sales, I may recommend using a CSA in addition to another sales avenue to ensure greater success.
Another disadvantage can be if customers potentially run into issues picking up their CSA subscriptions. If you have good customers and set good expectations you’ll probably never run into this issue, but sometimes customers can be problematic. Say if they have to go out of town and miss three weeks of their CSA, what then?
Part of it is setting those expectations - have a clause in your contract that states what happens if they miss their subscription (can be adding an additional share at the end for example). Whatever you choose, just make sure to have it laid out in the contract so that both parties can have the same expectations.
Yet another disadvantage is if the growing is problematic. For example, if you have a very late spring and an even later summer, you may find that you don’t have enough materials come the beginning of the CSA share! You do have to keep up your end of the bargain, so ensure that you have a way to ensure your customers can get their subscription - whether purchasing in materials or buying from other growers.
One of the other disadvantages is that CSA’s doesn’t necessarily grow your business very quickly! As opposed to a farmer’s market that allows you to get a lot of face time with the customers there, or doing wedding design that gets your work in front of photographers, wedding planners and potential clients, or even selling wholesale to florists or grocery stores, the CSA is one of the least public ways of selling your flowers. It’s great if you have a large customer base to support you, but if you’re looking to expand your operations it can unnecessarily restrict your growth - just something to keep in mind.
Succeeding with CSA’s
Here’s a couple things to keep in mind to ensure your success with a CSA subscription service
Set clear expectations with a contract to ensure that you and your customers have clear expectations of the season. Include start dates and end dates, locations and times for pickup, what to do if your customers miss a pickup, expectations of the bouquet or arrangement they are getting, and emergency situations
Make it easy for your customers to pickup their subscriptions. The most common location is usually at your farm - it’s one of the easiest and most logical locations! However there are plenty of other locations that also work - off farm. If you have a stall at a farmer’s market, that is the perfect spot for picking up a CSA subscription (and drives other customers to your stall as well) You can also have the pickup location at a business - we’ve heard of everything from local coffee shops to parking lots. Give them a set length of time that you’ll either be available, or that the arrangements will be available.
If you are relying on someone else (such as a store employee or an assistant) to distribute the arrangements, ensure that you have a checklist with the customer’s name on it. That way, you don’t have customers getting mixed up and you also know if anyone did not pick up their arrangement.
CSA MEMBERSHIP AGREEMENT
To help you with succeeding with your CSA, we have a very generic membership agreement that you can use for your flower farm business. It’s a pretty simple agreement, setting out the expectations for you as the grower, and your customer as a partnership in the CSA and supporting your farm.
Simple replace the blank spaces with your business name, modify the dates and pickup locations and specifications of your agreement, and you’re good to go!
Sample CSA Membership Agreement
Hope you find this useful, and we wish you all the success in starting your flower farming business! If you have any questions, feel free to ask them in the comments below.
And if you’re interested in learning more about growing a lot of flowers in a very small space, check out our posts on the 400 Square Foot Cutting Garden - a very intensive way of growing flowers on a small plot of land that could definitely support a CSA subscription service!