How we pack orders for our online farmers market

Another great video that Diego Footer filmed a few weeks back when he came up to our farm for the day.  This one is my favorite -- it shows in detail exactly how we pack the 100+ custom orders that come in through our webstore each week at Ojai Farmstand.  It's a process that has been 4 years in the making, and is being improved all the time.  We are making small tweaks now, instead of major adjustments, but those tweaks can make a huge difference.

One brief example: until last week, we had to manually re-sort the boxes once they were packed, within a specific delivery route, to be able to order them such that the driver has them in the order they need to be delivered.  This order is essential to efficient delivery.  We now found a way to organize our labels report such that the labels are listed already in the correct order for the route.  It was actually a suggestion of Diego when he was watching the whole process that got me thinking about a way to do this.  It sounds simple, but we have to work within the parameters of the software we use for the store.  We don't have the money or programming skills to design our own software tailored to our exact needs; we need to make do with programs that come close to what we want to do.  Fortunately, after just a couple hours of trying different spreadsheets and reports, I found a way to order the labels in the right way.  Thanks Diego!

​That leads me to say the best thing about this video for ME is now thousands of people are seeing the process, and commenting on it on youtube.  Already in just 2 days, there have been several very helpful and interesting comments / suggestions from people on things we could do to improve.  I LOVE that!  Everybody has a unique angle from which they see something different, and somebody across the country watching the video once can suggest something I never thought of, even though I have seen the process every single week for 4 years!  A fresh set of eyes is priceless.  I am so grateful to all who commented on the video, and I will reply to those comments, and even make a post here with some of the best ones.

Ben Hartman says in the Lean Farm that a good idea that goes unspoken is a form of waste.  This is a very cool example of this, and Diego did us a great favor by opening up the process to all his viewers to see it and critique it.  Keep it coming folks, and thanks for watching!  Be sure to check out all the rest of Diego's amazing content both on youtube and his podcast.