Palouse Brand founder Sara Mader on some of her products seeing a 4,000% demand jump during the pandemic and how her company worked with Amazon and local businesses to meet the challenge.
The coronavirus pandemic has caused demand for farm products and pantry staples to skyrocket to “astronomical levels,” one farmer told Fox Business Network Monday.
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Palouse Brand farmer Sara Mader told “The Claman Countdown” that business never really slowed down after the 2019 holiday season, and the virus outbreak only furthered their growth.
“I started watching the numbers very closely and the sales started jumping at astronomical levels,” she said. “So much so that we had to immediately flip products. We saw 4,000% growth in some products … We didn’t have time to catch up.”
The Washington state-based farm produces dry goods such as garbanzo beans, lentils, wheat berries and split peas. To manage demand, Mader said she leaned on local small businesses to revamp packaging and labeling.
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“We knew early March we were running out of packaging and we had to figure it out really quickly,” she explained. “And so we started using all of our U.S. channels to pull in packaging … We bought all the craft bags in the U.S. and had them shipped here from anybody that had any … I took one of those craft bags into the local print shop … And within 24 hours, we had a number one [Amazon] best seller on our hands.”
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As an Amazon partner for more than 10 years, Mader said Palouse Brand has been granted more flexibility and an alternative workforce. She claimed Amazon “protects my small business.”
“They have an amazing ability with the brand protection to take care of me. And who would have thought that I needed to protect the brand of lentils and garbanzo beans over 10 years ago when we started?” she said. “Amazon keeps redefining themselves and getting new tools to help businesses like mine succeed.”
