b"Pandemic Still Impacting Home Garden Seed MarketIndustry working to overcome depleted critical seed inventories. Vanessa FarnsworthTHE HOME GARDENseed market has seen its fair sharerecommending lesser-known vegetable varieties with character-of panic buying over the decades, but nothing in modernistics similar to popular ones that had sold out, something that history compares to the run on seeds triggered by the COVID-19resulted in sales of those varieties rising well above traditional pandemic and the lasting impact its had on the industry. volumes.It was very unexpected and I think in reality, throughout theThat, of course, made it tricky on the production side, he seed business, whenever theres some kind of global or nationalsaid.emergency, disaster, et cetera, we see a sales spike, says JohnThe home garden seed industry has long relied on seed stock-Brazaitis, general manager of Baker Creek Heirloom Seeds. Butpiles to guard against uncertainties inherent to any agricultural COVID was unprecedented. endeavor. The industry-wide run on home garden seeds that During the early days of the pandemic, media outlets werebegan in 2020 wiped out those critical seed inventories, some-brimming with reports of the commercial home garden seedthing that led to a significant strain on the global supply chain sector struggling to keep up with a massive, unexpected surge inwhen the entire industry attempted to replenish those inventories orders at a time when it was grappling with supply chain disrup- simultaneously.tions due to lockdowns, country-wide curfews, travel bans, socialSome things you just couldn't get or you could get very small distancing measures and more. Many of the sectors biggest play- amounts of, Brazaitis says. In the years 2021 and 2022, it was a ers including Johnnys Selected Seeds, Seed Savers Exchange,definite struggle to get some stuff and some things we actually Territorial Seed, and W. Atlee Burpee & Co. reported strugglingdidn't list in our catalogs because we simply couldn't get them.to keep up. Baumann faced a similar problem.According to Diane Blazek, executive director of the NationalWhat I counted on as being a three-year supply got wiped Garden Bureau, home garden seed breeders and retailers sawout. I didn't have that in my production plan for 2021 and so it an increase in demand that ranged anywhere from 50% to 200%just created this cascading, tail-chasing event, he says. I can above normal. Baker Creek was near the top end of that trend. only produce what I can produce in a certain amount of time. Nothing we had for fulfillment or seed packaging or anythingDepending on when [a crisis] hits, I can go to the southern hemi-else was set up for that kind of situation, Brazaitis says. We shutsphere and do some off-season croppingwhich we did a lot our website down several times to try to quell the amount ofmore ofbut I can't just make it.orders because we were completely and totally overwhelmed. The unprecedented spike in seed orders that began in 2020 Robb Baumann, a partner in True Leaf Market and vice-pres- came from all parts of the United States and remained high ident of the Home Garden Seed Association, says his companythrough 2021. Although it has since declined, demand has yet to also struggled. While it continued to fulfill orders throughout thedrop to pre-pandemic levels.worst of the pandemic, it had an impact on every aspect of hisBaumann notes that while average order size was fairly large business. in 2020 and 2021, it started to come down a little in 2022 and We have our own enterprise system that we built from2023. However, the number of orders and the number of cus-scratch. It manages our orders, our production, our shipping andtomers is still elevated and return order rates remain strong for our tracking and it broke every piece of it, he says. customers who placed their first orders in 2020 or 2021.During the pandemic, demand was strongest for popularBrazaitis reports that Baker Creeks customer acquisition varieties of staple vegetables including beans, beets, broccoli,was also huge during the first COVID years and many of those carrots, cauliflower, lettuce, peas, peppers, sweet corn and toma- new customers have remained. And while gardening has always toes. Known varietals sold out fast and Baumanns staff was soontrended towards an older crowd, hes now seeing many younger 42/ SEEDWORLD.COMFEBRUARY 2024"