Open Letter: Bare Roots Farm in Response to Gardener’s Supply Filing for Bankruptcy

Since we built our first greenhouse in 2013, Bare Roots Farm has grown from a seedling of a dream into a sustainable family business tucked into the hills of western Massachusetts. We’ve hauled plants to and from farmers’ markets and garden centers while pregnant, through life with small children, and while juggling midwifery and carpentry jobs to make ends meet, because our neighbors and customers kept telling us our seedlings were worth it. You saw value in what we grow, and that faith pushed us through the lean years. That faith enabled us to pivot during the pandemic to sell only from our farmstand and to local garden centers and co-ops.

One of our earliest wholesale customers was the Hadley Garden Center, then owned by Tom Giles. When we made our first delivery, Tom stopped us on our way out and said, “Make sure you charge us what these plants are worth.” That two-second vote of confidence still bolsters us to this day.  It demonstrated from the outset that Tom’s top priority was not his own profit margin, but the growers quality of life as well.

In 2019 Tom sold to Gardener’s Supply Company. This season alone we have supplied them with over $30,000 of Certified Organic tomatoes, herbs, perennials, and vegetable starts. On June 24 we wrote to ask why we had stopped receiving payment.  We were only then informed that four days earlier, without a word to their local growers, Gardener’s Supply had quietly filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy. We are now one of dozens of small farms pushed to the back of the line behind corporate creditors such as Bank of America, UPS, Google and Meta.  We have been told by everyone we have consulted to expect $0.

For us, the unpaid balance is $27,000.   Gardener’s filing for Chapter 11 means that they are able to continue operating while navigating bankruptcy.  In actuality this means that they have been and are continuing to sell our plants -and all other growers plants- without paying any of us.  The profits from our plants, our many hours of hard work, our costs of production, and the inputs of all the other growers and suppliers, will get funneled to the top to protect corporate interests and to fix their glaring business mistakes. When the bankruptcy is finally settled, the banks and the lawyers will get paid first, and we and all the other growers and suppliers will get our allotment from the leftovers, most likely nothing at all. 

 A lesson we have learned from this is: The bigger the company, the more expendable their growers. Our smaller wholesale partners, River Valley Co-op, Wanczyk Nurseries, Sugarloaf Gardens, Brattleboro Co-op, pay in full and on time because they know what it means to sweat for every dollar. Gardener’s Supply markets itself as “local,” but when trouble hits, they protect themselves and their corporate interests, while letting small growers eat their losses.

This isn’t just our fight. It is a warning about how fragile small farms are in a system built to favor the largest players. Every 4-pack of basil or pot of butterfly weed you buy directly from a farm stand helps keep that farm alive. Every time you choose a local nursery over a big-box store, you shorten the chain and make sure money flows back into real hands and real communities.

Bare Roots Farm exists only because of an incredible network of wonderful humans. First and foremost, the kind souls at Ireland Street Orchards who provide a home for our business, the family, friends, and customers who show up for us year after year. We will keep showing up too. Plants don’t wait for court proceedings, and neither will we.

So what can you do?

• Buy straight from local growers whenever you can. Farm stands, CSAs, small garden centers are where your dollars make an immediate difference.
   
• Tell your neighbors why it matters. Share this story so others understand what happens when corporations fail to honor their debts.

We know so much of the world is feeling wild and ferocious right now, with countless crises competing for attention. This is our very small place.  But, it helps to remind us- this is the time to care about robust and resilient local communities—to build local food security, to create and protect healthy soils, and to invest in the vibrancy of one another.  To see the humanity in one another and celebrate it.  This is the time to choose local. It keeps families like ours, and many others, standing.

Thank you for the years of support, for the kindness that built this farm, and for every seedling you plant on this earth. It really does make a difference – even when the corporations tell you it doesn’t.  We look forward to continuing to be your growers so your gardens may prosper.

Anna Maunz & Chris Reid at Bare Roots Farm in West Chesterfield and Worthington, MA