Tri-Cities family’s produce delivery business surges amid stay-home order

Getting real food directly to people’s homes has been Local Pumpkin’s mission for more than five years.

But in just one weekend the number of people who signed up for service more than doubled after stay home orders were issued in late March by Washington by Gov. Jay Inslee in response to the coronavirus outbreak.

The family-run Pasco business makes home deliveries of produce boxes that are sourced from local and regional farmers during the growing season, and other vendors during the off months.

Offerings can range from local potatoes, apples and onions to peppers and pineapples.

They also offer delivery of meat, eggs, dairy products, honey, jam, breakfast bars and fermented products — all from local, regional and Northwest sources.

“This time of year we do see an increase as people anticipate the local growing season beginning,” said Cathy Franklin, who along with her husband, John, started the business. “Even with that increase, we’ve never got to this number.”

While she notes that they aren’t a typical CSA — or community supported agriculture — they do serve the same purpose of getting local and organic food directly from farms to customer doorsteps.

The public took note of that service, and Local Pumpkin saw its average weekly deliveries grow from 250 to 540 over a two-week period — and they have a waiting list.

Customers can choose between weekly, biweekly or monthly deliveries.

The business, that started in 2014, spun out of the Franklins’ hobby farm at their home in Pasco that sits on 2 acres.

She and John, a controller at Gravis Law in Richland, run the business out of a converted barn along with three of their five adult children. They also have a number of part-time employees.

“We are working through these massive changes,” Franklin said. “We are a small family business — there are only so many hours of the day, and we can’t hire people to do what we’ve been doing by ourselves.”

Supporting local farmers

Among the challenges in the uptick in customers was basic logistics. They had to spend hours on their routing software to input new addresses, secure enough drivers for deliveries and determine if their vendors could fill all the orders.

One of those vendors is Pure Eire Dairy in Othello, a 100 percent grass-fed dairy that sells to grocery stores.

Local Pumpkin sources all manner of its products from milk to heavy cream and from yogurt to kefir, a fermented milk drink.

“We were told that we went from Pure Eire’s small and newest customer to being its biggest in two weeks,” Franklin said.

In addition to the growth in business, Franklin is glad to do her part in supporting local farmers and to better the health of the community.

“I’m really passionate about health and good food and more traditional methods,” she said.

One of the biggest things she continues to think about is people who don’t normally cook at home may be spending much more time in the kitchen until the stay home order ends May 4.

“This is such an opportunity to get back to basics of eating together as a family, and being creative in creating beautiful things in the kitchen and having amazing meals. It doesn’t have to be deprivation.”

This story was originally published April 12, 2020 at 2:47 PM.