Crates of courgettes and nowhere for them to go
It happens every summer. A warm fortnight and the courgettes, which were a trickle last week, arrive by the crate. The strawberries peak in the same few days as the PYO field. The plum trees you have been waiting on all year ripen together. The shop display is overflowing, the cool room is full, and on Thursday someone tips a barrow of soft fruit onto the compost heap.
Everybody knows what could have been done. A lower price for a bigger bag. A jam-making offer. A message to regular customers. The cafe putting courgette soup and plum crumble on the specials board. A call to the pub down the road that sometimes buys. It all happens, in a rush, by whoever has time, after the best of the crop has already gone.
Why gluts catch the shop out
The field team knows what is coming days before the shop does, but that knowledge lives in their heads and in conversations at the yard. The shop manager plans displays from what arrived yesterday. The cafe writes its menu for the week on Monday. And the customer list, if you have one, sits in the till or an email tool nobody opens mid-week.
- Harvest estimates are spoken, not written down, so the shop hears late.
- Nobody compares what is coming with what the shop normally sells.
- The cafe menu is fixed before the glut is known.
- Customer messages take time to write, so they go out after the peak.
- Trade buyers are called only when the fruit is already on the turn.
What a wasted glut costs
The obvious loss is produce grown, picked and thrown away. Picking costs labour, and fruit picked but unsold costs more than fruit left on the plant. The quieter losses matter too. Discounting in a panic trains customers to wait for cheap fruit. Staff spend peak season handling crates rather than serving. And the farm misses the chance to be known for its glut offers, which, done well, bring in customers who come back for the rest of the year.
There is also the lost information. Without a record of how much came in and where it went, next year's planting decisions repeat the same pattern.
The glut plan we build
- A quick daily harvest estimate from the field team on a phone: crop, expected crates or kilos over the next few days, and quality. It takes a minute at the end of the day and replaces the conversation at the yard.
- Normal sales for each crop, taken from your till's product sales, so the plan can compare what is coming with what the shop usually sells in the same days.
- A glut warning when the estimate runs well ahead of expected sales, with the size of the likely surplus.
- A list of glut actions you have agreed in advance for each crop: a bulk bag price, a jam or preserving offer, cafe specials, a customer message, trade buyers to call, a pick-your-own push. The plan suggests them in the order you set.
- Ready-to-send customer messages drafted for the crop, for your approval, going to people who opted in for that kind of offer, by email or SMS through the tool you already use.
- A record of what came in, what sold at which price, what went to the cafe or trade and what was wasted, for each glut.
| Glut action | Who acts | Lead time needed |
|---|---|---|
| Bulk bag or box price | Shop manager | Same day |
| Cafe specials | Cafe manager | A day or two |
| Customer message | Owner approves draft | A day ahead of the peak |
| Trade buyer calls | Whoever handles trade | A few days |
| Preserving or jam-making offer | Shop and kitchen | A few days |
The plan does not decide prices or which customers to contact. It gives you the warning early enough that your own decisions have time to work.
A July week with the plan running
On Sunday evening the field manager enters a large estimate for courgettes over the next four days. On Monday morning the shop manager sees a glut warning, puts out a 'bag of five' price and asks the cafe for courgette soup on Tuesday. On Tuesday the owner approves a short message to customers who signed up for glut offers, and a pub that buys courgettes gets a call. By Friday, the compost barrow has far less on it.
In winter, the records are the useful part. You can see which crops glutted, how much was saved by each action and how much still went to waste. That feeds straight into next year's sowing plan and into which actions are worth repeating.
Does summer look like this for you?
- Good produce goes on the compost heap during peak weeks.
- The shop finds out about a big harvest when the crates arrive.
- Glut offers and customer messages go out after the peak has passed.
- The cafe menu does not use what the fields are producing that week.
- You have no record of how much of each crop was wasted last year.