Natural Foods from Local Farms #277

Gabrielle Gosselin:

the farmers market background that was always the primary interest for us and the markets that we do in Brunswick are really quite strong and just getting stronger.

Tina Wilcoxson:

Growing up in a farm community where everyone was where most people were farming, especially around harvest time, the whole town was in it together and you don't really get that chance a lot, I don't think when the whole town is really pulling together for something. Oftentimes, unfortunately you see that happen. The whole town pulling together and it's around a tragedy. So this was the whole town pulling together around something Good.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

This is Dr. Lisa Belisle and you are listening to Love Maine Radio, show number 277, natural foods from Local Farms airing for the first time on Sunday, January 8, 2017. Mainers care about where their food comes from. We are known for supporting local farmers and the businesses that sell our farmers produce and goods. Today we speak with Nate Drummond and Gabrielle Goslin of Six River Farm in Bodenham and with Tina Willcoxen, who sells Six River Farm organic vegetables at Royal River Natural Foods, the store she owns in Yarmouth. Thank you for joining us.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

I have with me Nate Drummond and Gabrielle Gosselin who are the owners of Six River Farm, a diverse organic vegetable farm located on the shores of Merrymeeting Bay in Bodenham thanks for coming in today.

Gabrielle Gosselin:

Thanks for having us.

Nate Drummond:

Thanks for having us.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

So this has been an interesting adventure for you, having this farm. I'm sure that you have learned a lot since you, since you began.

Gabrielle Gosselin:

Definitely.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Tell me how this all started.

Nate Drummond:

Well, I guess, gosh, way back when we were graduating from college, we were sort of surrounded by lots of more friends and, and who are sort of starting to get into food and sort of foodie like people. And I guess a couple years after college we actually, or maybe a year after college, we actually moved down to New York City and we're sort of living in Brooklyn and just trying to find work to sort of make it worthwhile to be there. And after a period of time, Gabrielle decided that she really didn't want to be in her office job and start found a job at the farmers markets in New York City for a couple farms that were sort of in upstate New York and would come down to the city. And so that became her full story, full time job.

Gabrielle Gosselin:

Yeah. A friend asked me when I was trying to figure out what we were doing and what I wanted to do in New York City. A friend asked me what made me happy about being in the city. And I laughed and said, oh, I really like going to the markets. And she's like, well, why don't you just ask them for a job? Just go up and whatever stand you like. And I hadn't thought about that. So I went and did that and worked for two farms that were fantastic farms. And I learned a lot from the growers that came down and got more and more excited about the tangible physical work of selling and interacting with customers and learning about food and food production as well as food consumption. And sometimes on Saturdays I would get Nate to work with me if they need an extra hand. I think we both realized that living in New York was a temporary situation. It wasn't something we wanted long term. And we both became more interested in doing physical, tangible work. And so we decided to go apprentice on a farm. So we went to apprentice on Pleasant Valley Farm in Argyle, New York. And it was the farm that seemed the closest to the one we envisioned for ourselves in the future. They were able to support their family year round and sold primarily at farmers markets and did a diverse vegetable operation. So we learned from them and they were incredible teachers. And then we decided to just jump in and start on our own and learn a lot as we went from doing.

Nate Drummond:

Yeah, so that was back in 2007, so 10, pretty much 10 years ago now. And yeah, I grew up in Maine. Gabrielle grew up in western Massachusetts in Amherst. So we were sort of wanted to be back in New England and we were sort of just looking at trying to figure out farmland that was available. And we found, yeah, a really nice parcel in Bodenham. And so that's where we sort of ended up. We started when we started in 2007. We just grew two and a half acres of vegetables. It was just the two of us and we wanted to do farmers markets. That's sort of obviously what, what we knew. Well, I think, I think we, Gabrielle in particular, you know, we knew the marketing side of it very well from our time in New York City and whatnot. And we sort of were learning fast on the ground as far as all the other components of the, of the producing vegetables and the business side of it. Yeah, so it's been pretty much a 10 year adventure since then and we still actually farm that original piece of land along with some other fields that we lease and also own. And I guess six years ago we bought a house that's sort of adjacent that also has some farmland in Bodenham. And two years ago we had a daughter Alice, who sort of adds another great component to our sort of farm adventure. And yes, and at this point we grow probably like 15 acres of vegetables and we do, we also have a lot of decent number of greenhouses. So we're sort of operate all year round. Now we do a winter farmers market in Brunswick along with the farmers markets during the spring, summer and fall that are outside and, and combine that with some restaurant and natural food store sales sort of mostly in and around the Brunswick and Freeport area. And yeah, we've been from our starts of just, you know, when it began it was just the two of us sort of working actually not really side by side, usually on opposite ends of the farm, but just getting everything done together. And then now we usually have a pretty good sized crew in the summertime and we keep some of them on throughout the whole winter as well.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Did either one of you have a farming background in your families?

Gabrielle Gosselin:

No, not at all. Actually. Maybe you had a little bit more experience with farming and gardening from working growing up with your parents. But my family, there's no interest in gardening, no interest in food, in fact neither. My parents like to cook, but had a lot of support since going down this route. But it's definitely not what I grew up with.

Nate Drummond:

No, I mean, I grew up with parents who love to garden, who are actually my parents are both university professors, entomologists at university of Maine. So they study insects. So we sort of joke that they're sort of our insect pest, our on call insect pest consultants. And so they've been very supportive in this. But no, I think we're fairly emblematic of maybe a lot of sort of beginning farmers and that we sort of had a liberal arts education, came at farming from more the food end of things. And so that has maybe been a great help in the sense of we've always been very interested in the vegetables that we're cooking, you know, that we sort of cook what we grow and enjoy them. And we've sort of always been interested in. In experimenting with different. Different vegetables and. And very probably adept at marketing. But there was a very steep learning curve in learning to actually do the growing. And certainly apprenticing at a farm helped. And we've been surrounded by other very good farmers as we've gone along who have helped as well. But yeah, there's been a lot of education by doing over the years. And that's the nice thing about farming. Sort of every year you sort of have a clean slate almost. You get to try things and learn from your experience. And then you go into the wintertime and you can sort of. The fields are frozen and bare and you get to sort of think about what went right and what went wrong and how to try it again the next year a little bit differently. And so. So it's sort of. Yeah, it actually provides a very good sort of trial by doing sort of education.

Gabrielle Gosselin:

I think in many ways we were really lucky actually not to be trying to create our farm on a pre existing farm. Like if one of our families already had a farm that we were taking over because it's given us a lot more flexibility to create exactly what we want and to change things exactly how we would want them to. There was an existing infrastructure or certain equipment that was scaled to a degree that maybe we weren't interested in. We were lucky enough to. And we continue to be lucky enough to lease a barn and some cooler space. But we've really been able to create the farm that we want and grow it at the increments that we're interested in. And to the. Yeah, just shaping it each year, like Nate was saying, choosing in the winter what worked well, but also what are we interested in and how are interests changing? And you know, maybe now we're at a certain place where we can try some crops that perhaps aren't quite as profitable but are fun and we want to see what they do and that's okay. Because we have that flexibility at this point. So I think that's a pretty neat spot to be in.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

So give me some examples of crops that you are interested in that you kind of want to play with and see where they go.

Gabrielle Gosselin:

One thing we've been talking about recently is adding some more fruit to our production as a whole. We grow strawberries, but other than that we haven't done other berries or tree fruit. And we may not be set up or with the skill base currently to really manage them at the most efficient level. But we are talking about just growing some and seeing how that goes. And also having our daughter, she loves fruit of the all, all kinds. And so to be able to add that component to our farm, I think would add a certain amount of joy to all of us. You know, to be able to pick as a family as well as with our crew, certainly, but just to enjoy those other flavors.

Nate Drummond:

Yeah, and it's also fun to sort of, you know, you get to indulge yourself in the. Also sort of some of the obscure sort of offerings in the seed catalog. So it's sort of fun to have the flexibility to try, you know, like a red napa cabbage or you know, some whatever obscure, obscure chicory or something like that. So. And we're also lucky. You know, we. We sell to a number of very wonderful restaurants and sometimes they're happy to indulge our indulgences. So if we have something odd that maybe the. The farmers market, the regular farmer's market clientele is not as interested in, you know, sometimes one of the chefs will be interested in giving that a try. Although to be fair, a lot of many of our farmers market customers are amazing in what they're interested in trying too. And honestly, I think we're lucky to live in a part of Maine, sort of in the mid coast region that has a very. Yeah. A very sophisticated food taste. So it's amazing sometimes how much bok choy or radicchio or fennel that we'll sell at the farmer's market.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Who are some of the stores that you natural food stores and other stores that you work with?

Gabrielle Gosselin:

We sell to Royal River. We've been selling with. Working with them since we began. Actually. We were able to get certified organic our first year because no one had been growing on our fields for the. Well for many years prior. So they're an amazing natural food store that we've been selling with our entire farming season. And we also sell to a range of other stores, but we've begun selling to Hanford and Brunswick.

Nate Drummond:

Yeah, and we sell, I guess those are the main, like sort of small grocery stores. I mean, Hannaford's not small, but we just do that one. That one Brunswick store. And then, yeah, we sell to a lot to the Heresy Get Inn, which is in Freeport. And they do a lot of events, so they're a very big customer. And then a lot of those sort of restaurants in Brunswick, El Camino Restaurant, Tao Henry and Marty Trattoria, Athena, those are all good customers of ours. We sell it through. There's a couple small local distributors, Farm Fresh Connection and Unity Food Hub, that we sort of sometimes get our stuff a little bit further. But yeah, for the most part, those are some of our bigger core customers.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

And what are some of the things that these stores are likely to want or restaurants are likely to want from you?

Gabrielle Gosselin:

I'd say they want a wide range of things, which is great. And it really complements our farmers market production because our goal as a farm is sort of to be a one stop shop of pretty much anything you might want in the vegetable world for as long as possible throughout the year. And so I think that a lot of our wholesale customers appreciate the diversity that we have to offer as well as the length of time that they're able to get each crop from us. So I think we focus on extending the season maybe a bit more than. Well, there are plenty of farms that are doing that, but I just, I think they're excited to be able to get, you know, lettuce in December or January, as well as, you know, in June and things like that.

Nate Drummond:

Yeah, yeah, we offer a wide range, so we do certainly a lot of salad crops and leafy greens, but, you know, yeah, root crops and tomatoes and everything. So, yeah, it's a pretty diverse mix that we're able to offer people.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

And do you have a farm share set up with your farm?

Gabrielle Gosselin:

We don't at the moment. I think we've always felt a couple of things. One, coming from the farmers market background, that was always the primary interest for us. And the markets that we do in Brunswick are really quite strong and just getting stronger. And also I think we felt that if we were to do a farm share in conjunction with a farmer's market, maybe one of those would lose out a little bit. And we wanted to always prioritize the farmers market and didn't feel great about maybe having a farm share that wasn't quite as wonderful as the selection we were otherwise offering. Although I think there are more creative ways we could consider doing that. In the future, but we haven't pursued it yet.

Nate Drummond:

And I think there's also. There's just so many very good farms, sort of diverse vegetable farms in our part of the state. And a lot of them sort of, you know, do offer farm shares. And so sometimes we try and think of, you know, marketing niches that are, you know, not being served or relationships that we have that we can sort of develop further. But I think with the shares, we've looked around and seen that, you know, there's some very good farms that already offer shares within Brunswick or Freeport or further afield. And so maybe there's less of a need for us to try and compete in that niche as much as, you know, work with, you know, work more to, you know, grow more for either, you know, someone like Royal river who we're already dealing with, or, you know, try and add a new crop that we can sell at the farmer's market or something like that. So, yeah, we've sort of been trying to. To take our existing sort of markets and customers and try and just keep developing them.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

You talked about Gabrielle, you talked about. Well, actually, I think, Nate, you were the one that said that Gabrielle was not happy with her office job. So I'm interested in what were you doing? What was your education? You guys met at Brown, so obviously you have a very strong, strong educational background, academic educational background. What were you trained to do and what were you doing?

Gabrielle Gosselin:

Well, I can't say I was particularly trained to do something. I had a pretty obscure major as an undergrad. I was a South Asian studies major focusing on Eastern religion and language. So Sanskrit wasn't leading me specifically to a career. It was more of a personal interest, which now seems particularly random. But. So in New York, I was really just trying to feel out different opportunities that weren't related to any of my studies. And actually, I only had an office job for a few weeks and realized that I really, you know, for a great organization, but commuting to Midtown and sitting in a cubicle with a little window that faced directly to a brick wall of the adjacent building wasn't feeling very fulfilling. So it wasn't about the work so much as just where I was and sitting at a computer didn't excite me. Well, now there's some computer work certainly associated with our job, but I like the physical outdoor aspect quite a bit.

Nate Drummond:

Yeah, I think that was. It was a similar, although slightly longer progression for me. I mean, I came out of college being very interested in continuing in some sort of academic pathway. And not quite knowing. I was a history major, but not quite knowing sort of if that was going to be more sort of like history or some sort of policy based work. And I was actually working at Columbia when we were university, when we were in New York City, sort of doing academic research. And yeah, I think it was similarly a process of realizing that although, although the actual subjects were interesting, the actual complete package of sort of what it meant to work in academics was not actually that appealing to me. And some of that also had to do with just the setting, you know, wanting to be outside and wanting to do more physical work and, and also, you know, that there is, I think Gabrielle used word tangible a couple times. And there's something, you know, that when you're sort of writing papers and doing research and having, you know, that maybe, you know, a small number of other people may read and sort of informing what sometimes feels like a conversation that's being held by just a few people at a very high level and that really not really going any further than that interest in something that was tangible was very strong. And I think there had been a period right after college where we had actually both worked for an organic apple orchard up in Maine prior to moving to New York City. And it was a very sort of small taste of farm work. I stayed on and did some stonemason rework after with the owner. And it was just sort of enough of a taste to sort of make us think like, gosh, that really felt good. It was good to be tired, physically tired. At the end of the day it felt good to sort of just know very concretely what you had accomplished sort of thing. And I think for both of us that was something that was missing in our day to day lives. Working, working in the city. And so, you know, that has been honestly a big part of what has been what is rewarding about, about working on the farm is just that, you know, there's never, there's never any question about what, what you got done and what the meaning of that is. And even if it's, you know, just the, you know, there's satisfaction in, in weeding a row of carrots and having it be weedy when you start, clean when you finish. And, and then also knowing how important that is in the, in the sort of process, the whole process of getting those carrots from seed to harvest. And that's, you know, it's, it's, it's farming's a lot of very small rewards, a lot of very small frustrations as well, but a lot of small rewards. And I think the cumulative effect is very, is very significant on just quality of life level.

Gabrielle Gosselin:

I think also since we run our own farm, there's a great balance between we've been talking a lot about the physical work and you know, weeding carrots and sort of the tangible rewards of harvesting that carrot later in the season or something like that. But because it's our own farm, there's also so much that we're talking about and learning about and doing that is very stimulating and intellectually stimulating and challenging and you know, spending time planning the farm and how we're going to have a rotation and where does this fit into our business model and you know, how are we looking to grow and you know, where's our profit margin and all of these things, you know, is a nice balance for us, I guess, is what I'm getting at. So that it's not just the physical labor, but we're also continuously challenged intellectually as well.

Nate Drummond:

Yeah, I think we like to sort of think of it like organizing the farmers over is like sort of trying to figure out sort of, it's like a process of making the, sort of the circles overlap and you know, you have the big circle of the production side of things, of getting things to grow sufficiently well so that you have quite a quality produce over a long period of time. And then the circle of getting things to sell and then the circle of sort of making it all be sustainable both ecologically and lifestyle wise and financially and so sort of getting all those to overlap and sort of trying to keep things in that sweet spot in the middle. So yeah, there's a lot of sort of intellectual stimulation in just doing that, which is, which is great and somewhat, I won't say unexpected, but it's not why we got into it sort of thing necessarily, but it has been probably a big part of what has made it satisfying. And you know, something that we are interested in continuing on with.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

We talk a lot with people on the, on this show about different types of intelligence and different types of intelligence that are required to do whatever it is that someone chooses to do. And it sounds like you've tapped into multiple different types of intelligence in order to run a small business, actually grow food, parent your child market. I mean, and it sounds like it's not necessarily all, maybe, maybe very little of it is stuff that you got from sitting in a classroom.

Gabrielle Gosselin:

That's a good question. I think that our experience as undergrads just helped us learn how to think about our decision making process and that was probably the most beneficial thing. You know, the way that we decide to make small choices as well as larger choices is very much informed in the style of learning that we had

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

as undergrads, I think.

Nate Drummond:

Yeah, but it's also opened up the reality that there are lots of ways to learn and that, you know, just learning in the classroom or, you know, a college based education, you know, has lots of value, but there's also. Yeah, there's lots of different ways to learn and learning, hands on learning. I mean, I think one of the wonderful things about farming in Maine is that there's this incredibly supportive farming community, you know, certainly assisted by great organizations like MAFCA and Maine Farmland Trust and the University Extension system. But at the core, you know, there's a lot of farmers who are very passionate about sharing what they know and being very open and certainly older, more established farmers being very invested in younger farmers getting going and getting established themselves. And so, you know, we've had the great benefit of just not only being able to learn through our own experience, but really being able to, you learn from visiting other farms or going to farm conferences and hearing other farmers talk about what they do. We're actually very lucky to have landed where we did in Bodenham. There's sort of a. Actually there's a wonderful swath of very good alluvial farm soil that we sit on. And so that's a great help to our farm. But it also supports a number of other farms. So at the moment there's I think, seven different sort of all vegetable or cut flower farms that are all clustered right in our neighborhood. And so, you know, we get to essentially watch what our neighbors do and learn from them. And so it's sort of, you know, it's like a little cluster almost sort of like incubator. And and so that is incredibly important. I think you sort of don't realize until you're doing that how it's amazing just to be able to. The daily ability to bounce small creative ideas off someone else who is having a similar experience to you and compare notes, so to speak, is a very powerful way to learn. So that has also been very important for us.

Gabrielle Gosselin:

I also want to add, in the height of our season now we hire up to 16 people and everyone's coming from a wide range of prior work or life experiences. And we have been incredibly lucky to also learn from our employees. They have so much to offer, not just in terms of, you know, energy and enthusiasm for the work that they're doing on our farm, but Also maybe suggesting, hey, have you tried this a way that perhaps Nate and I have never even considered or, you know, small or big changes that are suggested have actually been incredibly valuable for our farm. And we have some employees who have worked with us for a number of years. Fellow Andy, who's worked with us for eight years and he manages the, the winter crew, which changes our role in the winter and means we can be home more and have more family time as well, is incredibly valuable. But, you know, he's very invested in the farm and always thinking about ways that we can do better. And I think that has been a huge asset for us.

Nate Drummond:

Yeah, I mean, it's definitely true. It's like the more, the more brains and eyes that you have sort of, you know, sort of engaged in the farm, you know, the more sort of the collective sort of, yeah, decision making is better and the better the outcome. So that has been a big. And yeah, many of our employees have their own farm experience working on other farms and whatnot. So they're sort of, you know, they can, we can tap into them to figure out, you know, sort of what other people are doing.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Well, I appreciate your coming in to talk with me today about this. This is very interesting for me and we will make the information about Six River Farm available to our listeners on our show notes page. I appreciate all the time that you've taken to come in and talk to us and to learn about farming and to send vegetables out in the world. As someone who goes to Royal Natural Foods on a regular basis, I have eaten your produce before. You do a very good job. It's quite delicious. And I've been speaking with Nate Drummond and Gabrielle Gosselin, who are the owners of Six River Farm, a diverse organic vegetable farm located on the shores of Merrymeeting Bay in Bodenham. Thanks for coming in.

Nate Drummond:

Thank you, Lisa.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Appreciate it.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Wilcoxon, who grew up on a farm in northern Maine, began working at Royal river Natural Foods 20 years ago and worked her way up to general manager and became the owner of the natural food store in Freeport three years ago. Thanks so much for coming in.

Tina Wilcoxson:

Thank you for having me.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

It is one of my favorite stores, so obviously.

Tina Wilcoxson:

Mine too.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Well, that's really good to hear. So living in Yarmouth, I feel like we are so lucky to have that access right in Freeport. Why did you start working there? What was your initial connection 20 years ago?

Tina Wilcoxson:

Well, I forget exactly how many years ago, but I went to massage therapy school in New Mexico, and when I came back to Maine, I started working at a little health food store in Cape Elizabeth for a little while and really got to put into practice what I had learned about nutrition and herbal supplements and just overall healthy eating. And that store burned down. So I waitressed for about a year and a friend of mine told me there was an opening at Royal river and that's where it started. And I just. I've worked in every department through the 20 years, and there was always something new to learn and I just loved it. I never found a reason to leave.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

You actually grew up in northern Maine? Yes, so. Well, first of all, where in northern Maine? Because it's quite a vast area.

Tina Wilcoxson:

I grew up in Limestone in Aroostook county, and my father was a potato farmer. I grew up on a potato farm, which was pretty common up there. It was a great place to grow up. I feel really lucky that I get to grow up there.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

That's where the former air base was.

Tina Wilcoxson:

Yes. Yeah. So that was really nice because, well, we were probably the most diverse school in the state, really, even though we were way up there because we had kids from other countries and kids that lived in all over the place. So it was really. It was interesting. It was nice. I'm really glad that I had that experience.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

So how did you find your way down to southern Maine and then out to New Mexico? What was the path there?

Tina Wilcoxson:

Well, I went to college in Orono and I'd worked in the Bangor area for a little bit. I was actually in pharmaceutical sales, of all things. I did that for about a year and decided I didn't like that very much. And I took a job in Bar harbor waitressing while I was trying to figure out what I was going to do. And the woman I worked for, she and her husband owned a restaurant. She was a Massage therapist. And one day I was helping in the kitchen, prepping, and I pulled my back. I was lifting a five gallon bucket of pickles and thought it was empty and it was full anyway, so she gave me a massage. And that was the first time I'd ever really even knew that such a thing existed. By the end of the summer, I decided I was going to go to massage therapy school. And it was a great school. We learned a lot about, as I said, herbal nutrition, herbal supplements, massage, polarity therapy. So when I came back to Maine, I wanted to use that while I was trying to build up a massage practice and just started working at, you know, the health food stores. And that's how I ended up there. So

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

I remember when Royal River Natural Foods was actually in, in Yarmouth and I think it was before that building turned into Napa Auto Parts. And then before it, now it's Maples Gelato. Yeah, but it was kind of a. It was kind of a funky little space and it was at a time where we were past the 70s when health food stores were like in their heyday.

Tina Wilcoxson:

Right.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

And we had not quite gotten to the place we are now, where I feel like people are very interested in health and nutrition. It was kind of in that interim space. And it was interesting to me to know that this was located in this little suburb, this little town. Were you working there during that time?

Tina Wilcoxson:

Our first store was actually even smaller than where Maples is now. It was in the little strip mall next to Romeo's in Yarmouth. Right.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

I actually remember that too. That's interesting. That was very far, very long.

Tina Wilcoxson:

When I first began working for Royal river, that's where I started. And then not long after I started working, Ruth bought the building where Maples is and we moved in there. The first store was so small. We had, I think about it how. I don't know how we managed. The back room was the size of a closet. And then when we moved to the other space, we felt like we had so much room and we were able to really expand and we could have customers come in and actually do the grocery shopping instead of doing just one little thing here, one little thing there. It was a lot of fun. It was fun to be part of that process. And we were really, I mean, you really were independent. We didn't really have any other groups or organizations at the time that we could belong to. So we were really trying to find our own way, you know, for most of it. Now I feel like there's some more support for independence, which is nice because you have other people you can talk to and commiserate with or celebrate with. So that's nice.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

The space that you're in now in Freeport is very good size, actually. And what I've noticed over the years of going there is that you're not just sitting back on your laurels. You're continuing to evolve it. The new produce case that you installed, it's beautiful and shiny and efficient and you walk right in the door. And one of my favorite things, I think, about your store is that right there is the producer and like the mangoes are talking to you and the grapes and the berries. And I think that that's one of the things that I've always liked about the independent stores is they put out there these very healthy options and they make them really appealing.

Tina Wilcoxson:

Yeah, we take a lot of pride in our produce. And it's a reason that a lot of people come to us because they really like our produce. And kind of a funny story, someone that used to be a produce manager at our store, she had moved away and come back and she was interviewing for a job at Wild Oats in Portland. And so part of her interview process, they said, okay, you know, go up to the produce section and do some culling and, you know, tell us what you would take out, which doesn't look good. And so she did her thing. And when they came back and saw her bucket full of stuff, they said, oh, your standards are way too high. So she didn't get the job. But we thought that was pretty funny. So we do take a lot of pride in our produce, and it's important to us. And we only carry organic. We made that commitment a long time ago. And I think customers really appreciate it. For one thing, it's easy. They know everything's organic there. They're not having to read the label. And it's, you know, it's important to us.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Well, and I also noticed that it used to be when we got organic food that especially produce, that there wasn't necessarily the selection and they didn't have the greenhouses now that people are using to grow year round. And so, you know, there was a lot of ugly fruit and twisted roots. And I don't really mind that. That doesn't really bother me, but there was more of that than not. But your stuff, really, I mean, as I said, it's kind of like the store has upped its game. Do you think that that is similar to what's going on industry wide when it comes to organic produce? I mean.

Tina Wilcoxson:

Yeah, well, I think there are more. There are more options for organic than there used to be 20 years ago when I was starting. We have a lot more farms in Maine. We have really an embarrassment of riches when it comes to that. We're so lucky. If you go to other states, they just don't have that. They don't have as many farms. They don't have as much access to choices, to natural food choices or independent retailers at all. There is a lot more selection and also with, you know, the increase in hoop houses and hydroponics, we're able to get local produce for a lot longer part of the season, which is great because then it's, you know, it's fresh. It's just coming from right down the road.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

It's also fun, I find, to go into your store and other independents. But because your store is my store where I usually go, there's like little fun products that I see. You know, we interviewed the woman who created Luhu wool balls for the dryer and I just thought, how great is it that I can go into the store that's small enough so you would worry that maybe the selection wasn't so great. But it also makes it possible that there's like little fun and creative products that you can run into.

Tina Wilcoxson:

Yeah, we carry her product. I use that myself. We have. I haven't done a check recently, but last time I checked we purchased from about 200 main farms producers, people that make the, you know, dryer balls or could be laundry detergent, herbal teas. So that really makes us different. But it's also a lot more fun for us because we get to work with a bunch of different people who have a really passionate about what they do, gives us some good variety and just makes it a much more interesting store for us who work there as well as for people who shop there. So that's a high priority for us to buy as much as we can from main companies.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

The people that work at your store also seem to have a pretty high level of knowledge about what they are selling. When I go in and I'm looking for echinacea or elderberry or fish oil or some supplement, there are people that work in your store who are able to say, here's a very high quality version of that. This is the direction I might go in, you have books that are available for references and it's impressive because that kind of knowledge is important.

Tina Wilcoxson:

It is important and it's very important. And people have a lot of access to information now that than they used to when we first started, you know, you can go on the Internet and get too much information, really. But, for example, Becky, who works in our supplement department for the last couple summers, I've had her go to Avena Botanicals, you know, and take some courses. And it's active learning, in a way. And you're really getting to learn about a lot of other properties of herbs that you may not know by just reading a book or get to hear from, you know, Deb Sewell's experience, who's. She's been a herbalist. I think that company's been around for 30 years. So that's. That's important. And for me, it's. That's where I started out working when I first started in the store. And I really enjoyed that part. Getting to work with people one on one. And you can have some pretty intimate conversations with people, and you're in a store, which is unusual. But that's. That's. I loved that. I really loved that. And I still love that because occasionally I'll fill in if someone's, you know, on a break or on vacation. And it's one of the things I really like is working with people one on one. And I don't think you get that in a lot of stores. So that's important to us to have someone in that department as much as possible to help people.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Well, it's useful to me also as a doctor because I will suggest that, for example, beet juice is good for high blood pressure. And I know that there's not that many places that have beet juice. Your store has it. And so I feel really comfortable, and I know it's high quality beet juice, so I feel really comfortable saying to a patient, okay, you don't want to take a medication. I'm completely behind that. Beet juice seems to work really well, and here's where you can get it. And I feel good that I'm sending them to a place where if they have questions, they can ask or if they, you know, if they have something else they'd like to get, they can. They can find it there.

Tina Wilcoxson:

Right? Yeah, we get a lot of referrals. And I really appreciate that. Thank you. From a lot of different physicians or, you know, chiropractors or other therapists. And we. I mean, I do. And I think a lot of people that work there try to take the whole approach. And if someone comes in looking for a certain supplement, ask them some questions about their diet or what they might be doing otherwise in their life. That could also help in a Gentle way. You know, you really need to kind of meet people where they're at. Years ago, when I was working in the supplement department, there's a couple that would come in fairly often and they would have a long list of supplements. And I would kind of try and talk them down a little bit. And it was obvious that they were smokers because when you work in a health food store, it's pretty obvious when someone comes in. But I didn't mention that. And over time we get a relationship and formed a relationship. So then I felt comfortable. Or I could say, you know, have you thought about maybe quitting smoking? That would probably do a lot more for you than just, you know, buying supplements. And they were very open and receptive and obviously they had thought about it and were working on it, so. And then it was so exciting because they came back to me, I don't know, a few months later and they said, we quit smoking. We haven't had, you know, so it was really exciting to be part of that and share that with them. So it's important to. Well, and I know that, you know, you believe this as well, to look at the, the whole picture and, you know, not try and just treat. One thing

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

I'm interested in this idea of an independent store like yours also needing to balance the books and make profits. I mean, there's a lot of great people often feel very mission driven and which is wonderful, obviously the mission, the whole person, the high quality produce is great. And then there's also the balancing of the books. And your store has actually been recognized as doing a good job with that.

Tina Wilcoxson:

Oh, thank you. Yeah, that's kind of the behind the curtain, non exciting part, you know, counting the beans. And I, I prioritize where the money goes that we do bring in. And I want to pay farmers a fair price. What they're asking. We don't, you know, if a farm comes to us and tells us they can sell us something for something, then that's what we pay them. We don't, you know, try to negotiate them down. And I always want to prioritize benefits for my staff. And when I, my intention when I bought the business was that I wanted to be able to run it the same way Ruth did. And I wanted to be able to be as generous an owner as she was. Otherwise I wasn't going to do it. And I had been doing the bookkeeping for several years and I'm like, okay, this can be done. And there are places you can save. And the places I think about saving are Electricity and how you're going to heat the building and things like that that aren't going to be affecting my staff or the customers. So it is a juggling act sometimes, but I like it.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

And you seem to have done a good job with your staff, because I've noticed some longitudinality.

Tina Wilcoxson:

Yeah, we have a lot of staff that have been there 10 years or longer. So I've been there 20 years. There are a couple of people that have been there for 17 years. 18, I think they're going on 18 years, five or six that are 10 years or more. And that's the other thing. I wanted to have a place where people want to stay and I can give them good benefits and good pay. And it's a fun place to work, and it's good for us. And it's also great for the customers, you know, to see the same faces. And, you know, there is some turnover. There's. You hire some young people, like your daughter's friend, and they go off to school and you want to see them do that. Even though we hate to see them go, but they usually come back.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Well, that leads me to my next question, which is actually, I think two of my daughter's friends and my daughter's 20, she's a junior in college. I think two of them worked for you in the last couple of years. And I know that one of them is planning to go to naturopathic school. So she's doing a lot of background courses in that. And it's interesting to me that this generation, they are very aware of. My daughter's. One of my daughter's roommates is a vegan, so they do a lot of vegan cooking and looking into the health benefits of certain foods. Her good friend that we're talking about, she, I believe, also is a vegan, but definitely has some food sensitivities. So she's very aware of that sort of thing. And I love this because I have literally been trying to get my kids interested in this for their entire lives. But I think it's somehow a little different when it's coming from mom and maybe even harder coming from mom, who is a doctor. I think a lot of it, when it comes from the peers, somehow it makes more sense.

Tina Wilcoxson:

Yeah. And people need to. Well, it always means more when they discover it on their own. Like with my husband, you know, he's a really good cook and he eats well. And when I would bring food home, first of all, it was always that it tasted better. So that was how. That was one way to Kind of get him into it. And then he just started really kind of embracing organic and non gmo. And it was cute because he'd read something and he'd get really excited about it and start talking to me about it. And I would just kind of smile and nod and listen and be like, yeah, yeah. As if I'd never heard it before. And then one day he called me up and said, can you bring home some cornstarch? I said, yeah. I'm like, don't we have corn starch at the house? Because we probably use a teaspoon a year. He goes, yeah, but it's not organic. It might have GMOs in it. So I said, I think I've created a monster.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Well, it's a good kind of monster.

Tina Wilcoxson:

It is a good kind of monster.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

I'm down with that kind of monster.

Tina Wilcoxson:

But it was, you know, he had to come to that on his own. It meant a lot more to him on his own than it did me telling him. And that's kind of the same approach, I think, that it's to take with customers that come in, like I was saying, you know, kind of meet them where they're at and get them to try a few things, and then maybe they'll want to try a few more things, and then they'll build from there.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Is it interesting to you that you began your life associated with a farm, and now you're in this part of your life and you're affiliated with farmers?

Tina Wilcoxson:

I know. Yeah, it is. I didn't think it would. It's kind of come full circle. I mean, I'm not farming, but I do get to work with farms. And that's one of my. That's really one of. That's one of my favorite parts of my job is talking with the farmers. And we have some real characters that come to the store with some really great stories. And I didn't realize, I think, until how much I missed being in a farm community until I started working with farmers again and getting to talk with them, because it's a different. I don't know. I have a hard time to describe it, but growing up in a farm community where everyone was. Where most people were farming, especially around harvest time, was just the whole town was in it together. And you don't really get that chance a lot. I don't think, when the whole town is really pulling together for something. Oftentimes, unfortunately, you see that happen. The whole town pulling together, and it's around a tragedy. So this was the whole town pulling Together around something good. And so I still get that. I get to have a little bit of that now in a different way,

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

I guess. My last question is one of the things that I used to notice about. I'll call them natural food stores, because that's what they used to be called, and yours is still called that. But small independent stores like yours was that some people went because there was a sense of fear about what was in the world, that the food that they had was bad and there were chemicals and there was. And I would sense that people were kind of escaping and taking refuge. And now what I sense, and not everybody, obviously, but now what I sense is that people are in the stores, and there are still people who are in the stores because they're fearing something and they're trying to go away from something. But now what I see are people who are trying to go towards something that people are saying, oh, well, if I try to buy food that's organic and doesn't have GMOs in it, then it's going to bring me better health. I'm not trying. It's not like I'm avoiding it because it could make me sick and die. It's more like I want to live my life fully. I want to savor, I want to grab hold.

Tina Wilcoxson:

Yeah, that's a great perspective. I think you're right. And I think another big part of it, too, is with a lot of the independent stores, especially where we, as I was saying, where we do carry a lot of Maine products. People in Maine are very proud of being from Maine and want to support Maine products. And so I think that's another reason that people. Drives people into the store knowing that they can buy a lot of things from Maine vendors. I had someone in the store recently from. I forget where she was from. Might have been Pennsylvania. And I was speaking with her after she was done shopping, and she goes, you. She goes, you people in Maine are kind of really into Maine, aren't you? Because she was noticing some of the names of the companies had. A lot of. A lot of the companies have the, you know, Maine in the name. And I kind of. I said, yeah, yeah, we are.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

So why do you think that is?

Tina Wilcoxson:

Well, I mean, it's a great place. I love Maine. I can't imagine being anywhere else. I love all the seasons. It's beautiful. I think the people are beautiful and wonderful, and it's a great place to. Great place to live.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

What have you learned over the last three years of being the owner of this business and having this responsibility.

Tina Wilcoxson:

Yeah, I have a few more gray hairs. What have I learned? It took me a little while to really take ownership, I guess, of being the owner, I think because I'd been there so long and worked with and still do work with a lot of the people that I was working with before I was the owner. So it was a little bit of a fuzzy transition, but I think now I'm starting to feel a little bit more like the owner. And I was always invested before. I was always Ruth always helped us all feel like we were really kind of part owners. But now if I have an idea, then I just get to do it. Like this summer when, you know, with the new produce case and the new. I can kind of get a little carried away. Sometimes I get going on a project and, you know, some of the staff are like, oh, Tina's got a hammer in her hand. What's going on? But I've really gotten a lot of fun out of it. And it's. I feel reinvigorated, I would say. Yeah.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

So what do you want the next five to ten years to look like for your store?

Tina Wilcoxson:

Well, my vision and my hope is that we're really a haven for people. I want customers to walk in and feel comfortable, to feel welcome, to feel at ease, you know, to come in and kind of go, oh, this is a nice, relaxed place. I like to place. So I want to continue to make that happen on a daily basis for people. And I want to continue to do well so that I can provide well for my staff and my community and charitable givings and help be, I guess, a voice in the community as well for healthy eating and healthy living. There are a lot of voices, and so which is I'm very thankful for.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Well, I appreciate your taking over the business three years ago, and I appreciate all the time that you've spent building the business over the last 20 years. For people who are interested where we were, Natural Foods is located in Freeport, and we will also put links on our show notes page. I've been speaking with Tina Wilcoxon, who grew up on a farm in northern Maine and now has worked her way up through the ranks to become the owner of Royal River Natural Foods in Freeport. Thanks so much for all the work that you do and thanks for coming in today.

Tina Wilcoxson:

Oh, thank you so much for having me.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

You've been listening to Love Maine radio show number 277, natural foods from Local Farms. Our guests have included Nate Drummond, Gabrielle Gosselin and Tina Wilcoxon. For a preview of each week's show, sign up for our E Newsletter and like our LoveMain Radio Facebook page. Follow me on Twitter as DRLISA and see my running travel, food and wellness photos as bountiful1 on Instagram. We'd love to hear from you so also please let us know what you think of Love Maine Radio. We welcome your suggestions for future shows. Also let our sponsors know that you have heard about them here. We are privileged that they enable us to bring love Maine Radio to you each week. This is Dr. Lisa Belisle. I hope that you have enjoyed our Natural Foods From Local Farms show. Thank you for allowing me to be a part of your day. May you have a bountiful life.

Tina Wilcoxson:

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