Thank you to everyone who took the time to complete our 2010 survey. What follows is a snapshot of results. We’ll also be posting some specific comments (without attribution) over the next few days, and then following up with responses from Julia and David at Woodbridge Farm.
I guess we already knew that these were all reasons why people join a CSA, but it’s interesting to see their relative importance. “High Quality Produce” was listed as Very Important by the largest number of respondents; “Economic Value” was marked Not Important most often.
“Income Accessibility” was a slightly different kind of question, which is why I’m showing it at the bottom, but is still considered an important aspect of the CSA by a large majority of members.
These are all values the CSA should aspire to improve.
While the quality of our vegetables was generally appreciated by most members, a sizable number were disappointed in the variety and value of our produce. And all of these marks were significantly worse than last year’s, when disappointment was marginal.
Our fruit share received high marks for quality and value, though variety comes across as a source of some disappointment. I take this, though, not to be the fault of Breezy Hill Orchards, which actually managed to have a much better harvest of berries and stone fruits than last year. Instead, it’s probably a matter of communication from the core group. Local fruit in the northeast primarily means one thing: apples. The season for berries is extremely short. We need to make sure members know they are basically buying an apple share, with a few other treats tossed in.
Eggs, pasta, and cheese received generally high marks, with one exception: cheese variety.
Not bad marks for the CSA organization, though, since this is the one area over which the core group has total control, we’ll keep trying to get those blue parts of the bar down to zero.
Finally, we asked members, if they had to decide right now, would they sign up again for the CSA in 2011.
For those of us who have worked hard to put the CSA together, that’s a disappointing final judgement. We’ll be meeting next week to start making plans for 2011, and we hope to be able to give more of you reasons to come back next year.