In Their Words: MilkRun’s Keith Bidwell

Keith Bidwell is supply chain manager for MilkRun, an online grocer in Portland, Seattle, Vancouver (WA), and Austin. Founded by farmer Julia Niiro in 2018, MilkRun serves thousands of customers, delivering groceries from more than 100 local farmers, butchers, bakers, and other producers. Keith joined OPN to talk about MilkRun’s relationships with local farms, the company’s explosive growth during COVID, organic produce trends, and more.

Can you tell us a little bit about your background in the food/produce industry?

My background is in the culinary profession. I've worked as a chef, and I have a lot of experience organizing and running some larger catering events. There's an event here in Portland called Pickathon Music Festival. I'm the director of hospitality there, and I do all of the behind-the-scenes foodservice, including working directly with farmers and ranchers.

Most recently, before the coronavirus hit, and before I started working at MilkRun, I was working here in Portland for a private event company called The Nightwood Society. Most of our private event work was done in partnership with a lot of the same farmers that I'm working with now.

Keith Bidwell, Supply Chain Manager, MilkRun

 

How did you end up transitioning to your current job at MilkRun?

I was furloughed from the Nightwood in mid-March due to the pandemic. Leah Scafe, one of the managers there, is close personal friends with Julia Niiro, the owner of MilkRun. Julia reached out to her because MilkRun’s business was growing during the shutdown and said, “We need some help. Does the Nightwood have anyone?” So Leah passed along my contact information, and I started here at the end of March.

Julia Niiro, Founder and CEO, MilkRun

What percentage of MilkRun’s produce is certified organic?

I would say probably 75 percent of what we buy is certified organic, and the rest is grown using organic growing practices. For some of the smaller farms we work with, the process and the costs associated with certification are not always feasible for them. And because we provide a lot of information about our farms and their growing practices to our customers, I think in many cases the locality of the produce is what our customers are most drawn to (though organic is super important to us).

Can you tell us about MilkRun’s relationships with farmers? 

Without our farmer relationships, we're nothing! We have such an amazing lineup of wonderful farmers that we work with throughout the year, such as Vibrant Valley, FoodWaves, West Balch Ranch, and Gathering Together. Some of them are among my personal friends, and some of them I met in June of last year and am now in constant contact with.

MilkRun organic produce

One of the really interesting things I’ve seen with our small to medium-size farmers has been how we as a business have been able to help them pivot in such a changing landscape of how people have access to food. There are a lot of farmers that we work with that in the past have predominantly grown produce for restaurants. Obviously, many of those accounts have dried up with so many restaurant closures.

A lot of things that those farmers were growing were really geared more towards the chef clientele versus the home cook. And so we've been able to work directly with farmers to reshape some of what they grow and how it's sold (such as bulk, bunches, each etc.). We've been able to start to look to the future with them to say, “Hey, let's map out a plan that works for both of us for this time next year.”

"Without our farmer relationships, we're nothing!" -Keith Bidwell

Because of this production planning, I now feel really confident going into this season. I have a garlic farmer; I have a handful of potato farmers; I have a blueberry farmer; I have my strawberry farmers; I have a corn farmer. And right now, I'm working to identify some farms that might want to grow some season extenders into the end of this year so that we have more local produce available at a time when variety is usually limited.

What kinds of season extenders?

In the Pacific Northwest, during the darker months, there's not as much access to leafy greens, and we'd rather not buy them from Southern California (nothing wrong with Southern California, but our model is trying to keep things as close to home as possible). So we're working with a handful of farmers to grow some head lettuce, different varieties of kale and mustard greens, and specialty greens like pea shoots and broccoli shoots much later into the season.

Do you work with any distributors?

We have a great relationship with Organically Grown Company (OGC). I really enjoy working with them. They have a good sense of the MilkRun model and what we do and why we do it. And they do a really good job at helping support us in terms of things that they they know will fit our business model, things that can be sourced within our region that they might have better access to. Obviously, these items depend upon the season, but one example would be Hermiston melons from Eastern Oregon. Those folks grow amazing melons, and OGC runs trucks out there.

And we work with OGC in Seattle as well. We’ve also developed a relationship with a group in Washington called the Puget Sound Food Hub. We’ve been working with them to source directly from some of their farmers (who also have a relationship with OGC), and OGC supports us merely in transportation.

"We have a great relationship with Organically Grown Company (OGC). I really enjoy working with them. They have a good sense of the MilkRun model and what we do and why we do it."- Keith Bidwell

What kind of trends have you noticed in organic produce consumption during your time at MilkRun?

I think one trend I see overall is that people want to shop with the season. And there are certainly a handful of organic products that are particularly popular like corn, for example, and also berries. Corn has outsold almost any piece of produce in our marketplace. One of our biggest corn growers is Nottinghamshire Farms, which is a certified organic farm in St. Paul, Oregon.

How has the COVID-19 situation affected MilkRun’s business?

Our business scaled up very quickly when everything shut down. It grew a lot in a short amount of time. In the month of March, our sales were the same as what we’d done in the entire previous year. It was a huge amount of growth!

Were the farmers you work with excited about the increase in demand?

Yes. In many cases, our growth and ability to scale up really quickly was what helped a lot of farmers make it through the season, quite honestly. I've had farmers say that they probably wouldn't have made it through the year without us (because they’d lost so much business at the farmers market and so many restaurant accounts). And it feels really good that we as a company have been able to support them in a way that we hope will be successful for us both well into the future.

"Our business scaled up very quickly when everything shut down. It grew a lot in a short amount of time. In the month of March, our sales were the same as what we’d done in the entire previous year. It was a huge amount of growth!" -Keith Bidwell

How did MilkRun decide to expand beyond Portland into Seattle, Vancouver (WA), and Austin in 2020?

We’ve seen incredible momentum in the business over the last year. And we’re very aware of the inequalities in how food is distributed among communities—that there's a very small percentage of companies that control how food is stored and delivered to the consumer. And we want to be a part of interrupting that in other cities beyond just Portland.

I really feel like we were the right group of people at the right time. It’s like we caught lightning in a bottle! We decided that if we’re going to grow and support other small farmers and ranchers in other cities, that we have to do it now—and so we did.