Prior to forming Appleseed Farms in 2011, the founder owned a more traditional produce company that strictly focused on the retail side of the industry. Our previous business relied on long unreliable supply chains and often left out local and regional growers. As part of our previous business, we leased warehouse space in Pittsburgh's Strip District to receive and distribute our product. Near our building, there was a parking lot that was managed by an older parking attendant who we later referred to as the parking lot guy. We often greeted the older parking attendant in passing. On one of our many busy workdays, the parking lot guy stopped us to praise us on our work ethic and let us know that he had been thinking about our business. He respectfully went on to tell us that all of our work would be in vain if our only goal was profit and growth. He went on to say the only way we would find success in this business is if your goal is to feed the people, which would later inspire us to create what is now known as Appleseed Farms. Our former business was focused mainly on profitability and efficiency. This often meant procuring product from all over the country and selling the same fruits and vegetables that the box stores were selling. The parking lot guy was right. For us to find success and be more than profitable we would have to change our approach and dedicate ourselves to not only feeding people, but offering them high quality, healthy, local food. Supplying them with the cheapest easiest thing was not going to cut it, nor would it satisfy us as business owners. With our new objective in mind, we returned to West Virginia University to study agricultural sciences, we created a new business plan, and rebranded both our business and ourselves. Appleseed Farms has since gone on to be a major contributor to local fruit and vegetable production and marketing. We have become self-producers in many vegetables such as corn tomatoes, and pumpkins. We have also worked with countless local and regional growers who come from similar backgrounds as ours. It has been our pleasure to find new creative ways to connect local and regional farmers with our customers throughout the area. While our business model has changed somewhat over the years, our goal of feeding the people has not changed and is still the driving force that keeps the company going year after year.
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