A sunny Saturday and a picked-out field
Your strawberry field has been busy all week. On Saturday the sun shines and everyone within half an hour's drive has the same idea. By ten the car park is full. By eleven the ripe rows are picked out and families are wandering the field finding green fruit. The queue at the weighing hut stretches back to the gate. Some people give up and leave without paying for what they picked. Others leave reviews about a wasted trip.
On Tuesday, meanwhile, there was plenty of fruit and hardly anyone came.
Why pick your own is so hard to balance
The amount of ripe fruit changes daily with the weather. The number of visitors changes with the weather too, but not in the same way. Without booking, you cannot control arrivals. With a simple booking tool, capacity is fixed in advance and does not reflect what the field team sees each evening.
- Ripe fruit available changes day by day and row by row.
- Visitors come when it is sunny, not when fruit is at its best.
- Booking tools set capacity weeks ahead.
- Field status is posted on social media by whoever has time.
- Weighing and paying is slow, with one scale and one till in a hut.
What an unbalanced day costs
Overcrowded days disappoint visitors and damage plants as people trample rows looking for fruit. Unpaid fruit leaves the farm in pockets and mouths. Underused days waste fruit that ripens and rots. Reviews from disappointed families put off people who would have come on a good day. And staff spend the whole day managing crowds rather than helping people pick.
There is a cost to the shop and cafe too: a family who had a bad PYO trip does not stay for lunch or buy anything else.
And there is a planning cost that only shows in winter. Without a record of how many people picked each field on each day, and how much they took home, you cannot tell whether a variety was worth growing, whether a field was over-planted for the visitors you get, or whether opening on weekdays pays for the staff it needs. Those decisions end up being made on the memory of one sunny Saturday and one wet Tuesday.
The PYO booking and weigh-out we build
- A short evening estimate from the field team for each crop and field: how much is ripe for tomorrow, entered on a phone.
- Timed booking slots on your website, with capacity for each slot set from the estimate using a rule you agree, and a small number of walk-up places held back if you want them.
- A field status page and social media post drafted from the same estimate: which crops are good, which fields are open, and whether slots are filling.
- Automatic closing of later slots if the field team marks rows as picked out during the day, with a message to people already booked if you choose.
- Booking check-in at the gate on a tablet, with the car registration or booking name.
- Faster weigh-out: extra tablets linked to your scales where possible, or to a simple scale reading, with card payment through your terminal, and PYO sales recorded by crop so you can see yield per field.
| Problem | What changes |
|---|---|
| Too many pickers for the fruit | Capacity set daily from field estimate |
| Fruit going over on quiet days | Extra slots released and promoted |
| Field status posted late | Status page updated from the estimate |
| Queue at the weighing hut | More weigh points, card payment |
| No idea how much each field produced | PYO sales recorded by crop and field |
Whether to charge for booking, take a deposit or keep it free with a charge only for what is picked is your decision. We build whichever approach you choose.
A PYO weekend afterwards
On Friday evening, the field manager enters a good estimate for strawberries and a poor one for raspberries. Saturday's strawberry slots open with more capacity, raspberries fewer. The status page and a drafted post go out. By Saturday lunchtime, one strawberry field is picked out, so the field manager marks it and the afternoon slots shrink.
At the gate, people check in quickly. At the hut, two weigh points and card payment keep the queue short. On Monday, you can see how much each field gave and how many visitors came, which helps with planting and pricing next year.
Does PYO season look like this?
- Fields are picked out by late morning on sunny weekends.
- Quiet weekdays leave ripe fruit unpicked.
- The weighing hut queue stretches to the gate.
- Field status updates depend on who has time to post.
- You do not know how much each field produced last season.