Wilklow Orchards and Bad Seed Cider Talks About How Selling at the @GrowNYC Greenmarkets Saved Their Farm

As some of you know, we recently did a heartwarming interview with Barry Benepe, who is the Founder of NYC's Greenmarkets. I just got a tip-off from his wife Judith about this interview and how Bad Seed Cider from Wilkow Orchards was able to save their farm by selling directly to customers. "When I was born in 1984 my father started to come to the Greenmarkets and we sold directly to the public for a retail price. And that’s really what started to turn the farm around. [I]t was kind of on its last strings which is crazy to think because my family has been on the same land since 1855. In the early ’80s, we were doing mostly wholesale accounts. At the time my grandmother was actually working in the packing house of an orchard up the street and my grandfather delivered corn for another farm. They were still doing their own farming on the side, but our farm couldn’t sustain itself. A lot of small apple farms in the area went out of business around then."