With people isolating at home during the early days of the pandemic, stores emptied and food began piling up at farms around New England. That’s when Caleb Ganzer and a couple of colleagues conceived of Berkshire Direct, a farm-to-home delivery service, now headquartered in Torrington.
The company launched last year, offering a way for local farmers with a lot of surplus crops, breads, honey, syrup, tea and other artisan products to get their foods to customers in western Connecticut, western Massachusetts and New York City.
Ganzer, the chief marketing officer for Berkshires Direct, said more than three dozen farms in Connecticut and Massachusetts provide foods to Berkshires Direct. And about 60 regular customers as far east as Hartford have hopped on board.
‘We have everything from fresh produce, lettuce, herbs, root vegetables, orchard fruits, berry fruits, rhubarb, ramps, fiddleheads when in season, dairy both in milk and cheese, eggs,” Ganzer aid. “We just launched chicken, and we’re working on getting more meat.”
The company was founded last year, in Amherst, Massachusetts, in a space rented from Marty’s Local, a farm food distributor.
“It was created due to the pandemic. People were not leaving their houses. Food was piling up at the farms. We decided to figure out a system to get food to people,” Ganzer said.
Ganzer said they outgrew the Amherst space and moved to Torrington. That city was more centrally located to serve customers in Connecticut, Massachusetts and New York. Berkshires Direct collaborates with Northwest Connecticut Food Hub, which shares a building with Berkshires Direct.
Renee Giroux co-owns Earth’s Palate Farm in Warren and is manager of Northwest Connecticut Food Hub. The nonprofit works with about 35 farmers located from the New York border to Farmington, to find channels to distribute excess produce: CSAs, farmer’s markets, grocery stores, food pantries.
“When you are the butcher, the baker and the candlestick maker, it can be tricky to find avenues to get your produce to the consumer,” Giroux said. “A lot of produce is grown in our region, as well as artisans who bake bread and make cheese. Everything we and Berkshires Direct do is hyperlocal.”
Ariel Warshaw of Fairfield has been a weekly customer since late January.
“We enjoy that it combines the best of a traditional CSA, which for us was the seasonality and sustainability practice and local food, but it also provides some things you don’t get from a CSA, mainly a lot more variety. And I love the fact that it’s from our region. For two people not from New England, it’s nice to eat seasonally in the part of the country we live in, in a way that celebrates where we are.”
In addition to Berkshires Direct, Ganzer has a “day job” that is actually a night job, a sommelier at Compagnie de Vins Surnaturels, a wine bar in Soho. They started food delivery at the bar, too.
“We started a CSA farm box in the middle of March last year. The farmer’s markets in the city had all this extra produce when all the restaurants shut down,” he said. “We were delivering our wines with the boxes, to stay in business.”
Ganzer started Berkshires Direct with CEO Stephanie Park and COO Miriam Wakim and a corps of other workers. “Our baskets are curated weekly by one of our colleagues, a chef who was underemployed due to the pandemic,” Ganzer said.
Farm boxes range from $55 to $85, with add-ons such as hot sauces, vinaigrettes, artisan mustards and organic sugars and flours. Food is harvested on Mondays or Tuesdays. Deliveries are made on Tuesdays and Wednesdays. Those who sign up for repeat delivery can get discounts.
The produce offerings vary depending on time of year. “We do our best to communicate a couple of days in advance what food will be delivered, so our customers can plan their week, plan their shopping trips,” Ganzer said. “What is in the boxes is a perfect snapshot of time, what is in season at the time.”
Find more information at berkshiresdirect.com.
Susan Dunne can be reached at sdunne@courant.com.
