The coronavirus pandemic has had many devastating effects throughout the world, and many people are staying inside to help prevent the spread of the virus. Gold Coast Packing decided to take steps to help people with this goal by providing produce boxes that can be picked up at a drive through at Costa de Oro Winery, located in the company’s home-base: Santa Maria, California.
Crystal Chavez, Gold Coast Packing’s Marketing Coordinator says: “This is actually something that we had discussed internally a few years back, but it just hadn’t come to fruition yet. With everything that is going on now, it seemed like the perfect time to realize this project.”
Successful start to the project
The system is set up so that interested consumers can place their order for a produce box by the Wednesday of the week, before 4 pm, and then Gold Coast will prepare the boxes fresh on Thursday. The boxes are then ready for pickup on Friday and Saturday from the Costa de Oro Winery’s drive through. Customers can also include bottles of wine with their produce box for a special price. “The winery is actually also owned by the owners of Gold Coast Packing, which made it a logical location for the box pick-up since they are equipped to work directly with consumers. Of course, their drive-through window was also ideal for the project,” Chavez explains.
Last week, the week ending in April 12th, was the produce box’s debut-week. “We had about 40 orders for that first Friday. We also prepared a few extra boxes, just in case, and we completely sold out. This week, the orders have about quadrupled over last week, so the response has been really great. The consumer support for the project so far has been amazing – people have been posting about it on social media and reaching out to us about it. A lot of people are also ordering multiple boxes so that they can bring some to family members,” Chavez shares.
Core-items make up the selection
The boxes consist of six items, which make up the core of the Gold Coast Packing’s offering: broccoli florets, broccoli slaw, cauliflower, spinach, cilantro and Brussels sprouts, which they’ve only been offering since last year with great success so far. “Everything is washed and ready-to-use, which means there’s a lot of added value to these products,” Chavez explains. “Many people aren’t comfortable going to stores during these times, and we wanted to provide products that are versatile and healthy. Each of these products are grown locally, too. So, the people who are purchasing these boxes see these vegetables in the fields around town, and they know that it’s fresh.”
The consumers have been very positive about the boxes and have been inquiring if there might be more than one variety available soon. To this, Chavez says: “We’re talking about it, but we want to make sure that we can continue offering the boxes around the same price point – around $18 per box. So, we would have to find out what we can take away and replace to remain below that $20 range.”
“When the winery first opened it offered Gold Coast’s locally grown produce for purchase. Now with the community need, everything came together for us within a week, allowing us to provide these boxes and help out,” Chavez concludes.
For more information:
Crystal Chavez
Gold Coast Packing
Tel: +1 (805)928-2593
Email: Crystal@goldcoastpack.com
www.goldcoastpack.com