172: Allan Gandelman of Main Street Farms on Meeting People’s Needs through Scaling and Marketing Decisions

Farmer to Farmer with Chris Blanchard

Allan Gandelman raises 45 acres of crops at Main Street Farms in central New York state with his partner, BobCat. With twenty employees in its eighth year in business, Main Street Farms sells through a CSA, farmers market, and wholesale accounts.

Main Street Farms got its start in 2011 with an acre of production and an aquaponics set up, so they’ve grown a lot in the last eight years and Allan and I talk a lot about the process of scaling up their operation and finding their way with different mixes of enterprises and marketing outlets, and how that has meshed with meeting the needs of people on the farm.

We dig into Main Street Farms’ 42-week CSA, their acre of greenhouse production, and their new hemp enterprise and how it all fits together into a coherent whole.

Perennial support for the Farmer to Farmer Podcast is generously provided by Vermont Compost Company.

Pictures, show links, and more at farmertofarmerpodcast.com/episodes/gandelman.