Tennessee Agribusinesses Adapt to a New Normal to Serve Customers

Tennessee’s agribusinesses showed amazing resilience in the face of the COVID-19 pandemic, adjusting operations to safely serve their communities.

Making Sanitizer Creates Hope

As the founder and owner of Corsair Distillery, Darek Bell knew his company could make hand sanitizer when it disappeared from store shelves early on in the pandemic. At first, they gave it away – but they quickly ran out of ethanol and other raw materials. “We also had to buy things to meet Food and Drug Administration standards, so we couldn’t afford to give it away then,” Bell says.

Nashville’s first legal craft distillery after Prohibition, Corsair Distillery utilizes its own smokehouse and malthouse on Bell’s farm to smoke malted barley for use in whiskeys such as Triple Smoke American Single Malt Whiskey, named Artisan Whiskey of the Year by Whisky Advocate.

However, in spring 2020, Bell redirected his 30 employees to produce sanitizer rather than crafting beer and award-winning whiskeys and gins. “Selling sanitizer kept us alive for those two or three months when everything was shut down,” he says.

See more: 15 Tennessee Farmers Markets Across the State

Making sanitizer had other benefits as well. “It was something we could do to give back to our community, to keep people employed, and it was a way for us to keep our chins up and stay hopeful.”

Farmers Markets Pivot

The indoor Grow Oak Ridge Winter Farmers’ Market was near the end of its 2020 season when the statewide shutdown went into effect. “We moved the market outside,” says market manager Rebecca Williams. “It was crazy, but we survived. I thought COVID would go away by July.”

By summer, however, Williams had observed other markets across the state shift to curbside pickups. For example, the farmers markets in Nashville and Nolensville opened with online preorder and drive-thru options before transitioning to their normal walk-through markets. In Knoxville, the downtown market temporarily relocated from Market Square to Mary Costa Plaza, which closed the market’s perimeter and controlled access in and out. In Memphis, managers reminded shoppers of safety protocols, including masks, social distancing and limiting contact.

In Oak Ridge, Williams realized she needed to offer online ordering for the first time. A CARES Act grant enabled Williams to purchase a multi-vendor e-commerce program. She hired two former teachers to upload 240 products representing 40 vendors and help each vendor manage their inventory electronically.

The Winter Farmers’ Market opened in December 2020 with both online and in-person options for shoppers. With those choices, Williams feels Grow Oak Ridge continues to fulfill its mission of connecting local farmers and producers to the public in a responsible way. “Now more than ever, people realize the importance of a strong, local food system,” Williams says. “We’ve seen the weaknesses of the large food chain. In times of crisis, local food systems shine.”

Outdoor-Oriented Businesses Adopt Safety Guidelines

Bert Driver Nursery outside Smithville includes a wholesale and retail nursery, a beer garden and a hemp dispensary – three different ag-related businesses in one location, and all outdoors. With employees and customers outside nearly all the time, it wasn’t difficult to implement the Tennessee Pledge safety guidelines.

Driver closed the lobby and built a service window connected to a greenhouse. He even added fire pits where customers could warm up while waiting for their plant material or growlers of beer with directional signage reminding folks to social distance.

“We may even pivot to the service window going forward,” says Driver, a board member of the Tennessee Nursery & Landscape Association. “It kind of worked out better for us anyway.”