After eleven years, we have decided to close the bakery at Little Hat Creek Farm so we can focus on growing vegetables and plant starts. The bakery was successful to the point where we had to decide whether to get even bigger or scale back; we chose the latter. While closing may seem extreme, we explored every possible iteration of “smaller” and found a clean break to be the most satisfying. We feel good about the decision and are excited to see Little Hat Creek Farm into its next, vegetable focused, stage.
One of the most rewarding parts of running a small business is also the most challenging. As a business owner, your work directly impacts hundreds of lives in your community, generating immense satisfaction. But when it comes time to change jobs, as people do from time to time, the consequences of that decision also directly impact hundreds of lives. The loss is real.
But what about the gains?
We provided really good bread and croissants to our community for eleven years and trained bakers in the art of woodfired baking with local flour. These bakers have gone on to start their own bakeries, work for others, or just bake better bread for their families. My work as a buyer and organizer supported the network of local grain businesses through its infancy into the rapidly growing Common Grain Alliance (who increased their membership by an astonishing 50% last year). And my partnership with Ben helped him find his feet as a farmer to where he feels confident continuing to grow vegetables for our community, even if I need to make a change.
I try to focus on these things, rather than the loss, when I think about closing. It will surprise no one to hear that managing a bakery and managing a young family has pulled me in opposing directions. While the bakery has done important work, and could continue to do so, I am making the choice to give my family–including my wonderful parents, who are now in their eighties–the best of myself. That means the time has come for me to change jobs. I hope you see this as a positive move towards a more sustainable business that will continue to provide you with fresh, nutritious food for years to come. Words cannot express how grateful we feel towards you for your support and custom over the years. We hope you will continue to visit us at market and look forward to filling your basket with vegetables and plants!
What is changing, and when?
Vegetables & Plants We will continue to produce high-quality vegetables and garden starts for our farmers' markets. In addition, I plan to work towards increasing the diversity of what we grow and how we use the land. Ecological diversity is a pillar of soil health and I am excited to leverage my background as a physiological ecologist to improve it. We have some perennial fruit (sour cherries, apples), but I dream of adding more. There are some vegetable crops we don't grow, and Ben is too busy to troubleshoot them; I aim to help. Over time, the goal is to expand the range of vegetables and fruit we can bring to market.
Farmers' markets We will be attending all of our normal farmers' markets in 2025, including plant sales at Maymont and AHS in Alexandria. We plan to start selling at the IX Art Park Farmer's Market the last week of March, the Lexington Farmer's Market the first week of April, and the Nelson Farmer's Market the first week of May. Please come say hello!
Bread & croissants The bakery is currently closed. When we come back to our markets in the spring, we will no longer be bringing sourdough breads and croissants every time.
Crackers, cookies, granola, overnight oats In the short term, we will maintain our wholesale accounts and stock of these items while we search for a buyer for our dry goods line. We still have stock that you can have shipped to you directly at any time.
Order here
Local deliveries We will be discontinuing local deliveries and eventually closing our online store (but not until we run out of crackers!) Thank you so much to everyone who participated in this venture! We have had fun trying this out, and it kept everyone going during the pandemic. But in a bid to simplify the business, we are refocusing on our markets, which we love participating in and remain the bulk of our sales.
Our long-running newsletter We will continue to use our newsletter to send news of our farm and family, but the frequency of mailings should become a little less frequent now that we aren't doing local deliveries.
Our website & social media I am in the process of updating our public-facing media to reflect the changes to our business. You will still be able to order dry goods and snacks through our website as long as we have them in stock. And we'll be sure to let you know when and if we transfer ownership of that product line.
Thank you so much for reading. And thank you for your support! We wouldn't be here without you.