If any business in New Jersey was positioned well to deal with COVID-19 restrictions, it was Alstede Farms in Chester. Years ago, founder Kurt Alstede shifted his business to focus solely on selling fresh fruit and vegetables directly to consumers and built a destination within an hour’s drive of 22 million people. For the latest installment of NJBIZ Conversations, Editor Jeff Kanige spoke with founder Kurt Alstede about why he got into the business of agriculture, the ways in which consumer tastes have changed and how he meets the challenges of running a retail operation while actively farming 800 acres — all during a deadly pandemic. “We very quickly pivoted and our team did a great job of getting our entire farm store listed online,” he said. “So today we now have the capability of doing curbside and local delivery. We can do local delivery to one of our many farmers’ markets and during the height of the season, we were doing as many as four to five hundred curbsides a day. We turned our entire team into shoppers.” Watch the full interview here.
