Morning Chilli Farmers!
First thing, Ben our Operations Manager gets the coffee on and we have a quick team catch up.
How are we all? How are our pets and babies? And OOOO... What cake do we have today? Chilli farmers have cake as our default setting you know!
I co-ordinate the production of everything in the warehouse at South Devon Chilli Farm that is packed and assembled. Seeds, dried chillies, and all our gift sets. The cooking of everything is down to Dave, our head chef.
We are in the midst of our busiest time of year for seed sales so I start the day by counting & packing 1000s and 1000s of seeds. We have approximately 60 varieties at present, with plans to add more varieties at the end of this year! I pop the packs into brightly coloured seed packets for our Fulfilment Team to send out to our eager customers.
Next to get to grips with our homegrown chillies that we dry here at the farm. Any custom requests? Bulk orders? Do we have enough to last for the rest of the season? Is there time to amend the growing plan for the crop tunnels? Have any celebrity chefs endorsed our chillies that might change our sales pattern? We have 10 main varieties that we grow for commercial use, as well as 100s of others grown for plant sales and our show tunnel. A huge task carried out by our Horticulturalists.
Lunchtime now and the team dogs need entertainment! Frida, Maggie and Bear get along brilliantly, so its a highlight of their day to get together for a session of "lose the ball in the orchard"! I check on & restock our chilli farm bird table which was erected during lockdown and has since attracted many new breeds of birds to our site.
Back inside, Ben pops by again to tell me that the Christmas production schedule is shaping up. I am still hoovering pine needles out of my carpet from Christmas 2022!! There will be in excess of 20,000 items to build, a great deal of coordination with the kitchen on cooking dates & with the warehouse team regarding space required. Space is always the final frontier here at South Devon Chilli Farm! Vast amounts of packaging to be ordered, new labels to design and gift sets to create.
Not even more cake can help me at this point! Time to go home and count chilli seeds in my sleep...
Goodbye chilli farmers!
Lucy x