Aimart merchant Juanita Chavarria was once a stay-at-home mom struggling to find flexible employment. She had an interest in agriculture, but no land to speak of. So, she started researching what she could grow at home indoors. That’s how she landed on the idea of a microgreens business. Now, she runs an urban farm in Tacoma, Washington, specializing in microgreens, herbs, and edible flowers.
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Juanita started Baby Chavs Urban Farm as a grow-to-order concept, providing microgreens to wholesale customers like food banks, online markets, and mom n’ pop grocery stores. When she set her sights on selling to restaurants and realized that chefs wanted to purchase the crops on demand, she pivoted.
Now, thanks to Baby Chavs’ success, Juanita is able to rent a farm plot. For the first time, she is growing her microgreens, herbs, and flowers in-ground in addition to indoors at her home.
Prior to joining Airmart, Juanita used Wix for her microgreens business website and invoiced customers through Quickbooks. She found that the checkout process was difficult to navigate and didn’t like how much Wix charged for their e-commerce feature. While searching for a simpler online storefront that was straight to the point, she came across Airmart. Now she can sell wholesale and direct to customers easily for a fraction of the cost.
Why buy from a local microgreens business like Baby Chavs?
Juanita strives for the highest quality crops, so if she wouldn’t purchase a product herself, she won’t list it for sale.
Like any small business on Airmart, the Baby Chavs’ customer experience is unmatched. Being a small urban farmer allows Juanita to offer personalized service. Baby Chavs customers can request new items and share their concerns with her directly. They know they can count on her for open, honest communication.
As a Black farmer, Juanita hopes to highlight the importance of representation in agriculture. “There’s not many of us out here in Washington,” she said. “I want to encourage us to get back into agriculture and feed our communities well.”
Learn how you can sell microgreens from home and start your own microgreens business by checking out our blog.