Cutting Edge: In Search of New Crops For Wisconsin

Episode 17: Saffron, Part 2

Recorded February 16, 2021

SUMMARY KEYWORDS

saffron, growers, people, parker, growing, farm, crop, margaret, dry, vermont, wisconsin, jonathan, arash, year, market, flower, talking, threads, website, area

SPEAKERS

Jerry Clark, Margaret Skinner, Jon Pylpiv, Evan Henthrone, JASON FISCHBACH, Parker Shorey, Arash Ghalehgolabbehbahani

 

JASON FISCHBACH  00:00

This is a podcast about new crops, you’re gonna love it. Join us on The Cutting Edge, a podcast in search of new crops for Wisconsin. (music)

 

Margaret Skinner  00:11

They would say, okay, it’s dry, and they would show us this kind of limp stigma that clearly wasn’t dry, it was dry-ish. And it’s critical that the stigmas are dry because when they go into the jar, if they are not dry enough, they will mold.

 

Evan Henthrone  00:49

Welcome back to the cutting edge, a podcast in search of new crops for Wisconsin. I’m your co host, Evan Henthrone, with the University of Wisconsin Madison Division of Extension, serving as an agriculture educator in Adams County. And joining me as my co host is Jerry Clark, agriculture educator from Chippewa County. And our guests today are Parker Shorey, founder of LemonFair Saffron Company. We have Jonathan, Arash and Margaret all joining us back again for our next segment of saffron. So who is excited? 2.0. Here we go. Gary, how are you doing?

 

Jerry Clark  01:26

Doing well, Evan, thanks for that introduction. It’s cold enough. So it’s great that we can, I think it’s like 20 below tonight and the high of not getting above zero today, here in mid February. And I think it’d be great to talk about flowers or something outside for a minute.

 

Evan Henthrone  01:46

Yeah, I am ready for, I can tell you I am ready for spring. I’m ready to get outside and enjoy warm things again.

 

Jerry Clark  01:53

You bet. All right, well, we got our guests here today, Arash and Margaret, from the University of Vermont. And, Arash, I’m gonna start with you. So this saffron, we kind of talked about some growing techniques last week, what it is, kind of general overview, but is there really a market for such an expensive spice and maybe just give us another little background on on what it is and and where this markets at?

 

Arash Ghalehgolabbehbahani  02:19

Yeah, thanks, again, for having me in your program. Yeah, actually, for answering your question, we have to look at the evidences that we have. The evidence has showed we imported more than 71 tons of saffron in 2019. That means we are a consumer 71 tons is talking about something between 10% to 20% of the global production of saffron. So we have a market somewhere in United States. on the other hand, I should say. Every saffron grower is local, or Americans buy from producers that they know they could be able to sell their products. So when we have a look overall, we see like, yeah, there is market and the market is not still saturated for the growers.

 

Jerry Clark  03:17

So we’re able to see some potential out there. And I think that’s where we’re glad to have Parker with us as a new guest today working as a grower and distributor. Just tell us a little bit about your farm background, Parker, your business and where you see the opportunity for saffron.

 

Parker Shorey  03:37

Yeah, first, thank you for having me. It’s It’s a pleasure to be here. I always I’m from Vermont, and I always consider Wisconsin and Vermont as friends. We have the cheese connection for sure. So I I have a farming background just just growing up farming. My summer jobs were farming in different places helping out and I got interested in saffron when Arash and Margaret published their first study. And like a lot of people starting up, I I went, I loved the idea. And I went after it with a greenhouse and some raised beds and grew saffron in 2017 in Vermont. So through that experience, I’ve learned a few things. One is that I actually was more interested in the drying of saffron, and the quality that could come out through the drying process. And I also felt like to expand. I needed to expand through partnerships with other small farms versus more acreage myself. So lemonFair Saffron Company was founded as a way to partner with these farms, sharing growing tips with them, and then purchasing saffron and marketing it in the market of New York City, which is where I’m based half my time so bring that that U.S. grown saffron to the markets in New York and try to create a market with that. So that’s that’s where we are. I a few years in, I have a partner Hannah, who’s been amazing helping on Instagram, the website. And we’re getting good traction. I’m happy to talk more about that.

 

Margaret Skinner  05:13

Parker’s website is beautiful. And the it makes you want to eat the food that he is recommending. And it just if you want something warm and to make you feel better, you need to go to his website.

 

JASON FISCHBACH  05:30

Well, listeners to make it easier for you. We’ll just give you the website: lemonfairsaffron.com. It’s all one word, lemonfairsaffron.com.

 

Evan Henthrone  05:48

Awesome. So Parker, you kind of touched on it. But you said you, are you using a lot of social media? Did I hear Instagram? And kind of, can you just elaborate a little bit more on that and how you’re making this reach to people in promoting your, your product?

 

Parker Shorey  06:02

Yeah, definitely. First, I’d say Instagram is is perfect for saffron. It’s obviously it’s a visual very visual tool. There’s a lot of food and foodies already on it. The colors of saffron from the flower itself, to the final dishes, it’s really perfect for Instagram. What we’re doing is sort of regular posts, educating people about all all parts of the process from growing to recipes. I will say we’ve noticed the recipes, the food is getting the most engagement. As Margaret said, they have a saffron hot toddy that I think people like, we have saffron sort of butter pasta sauce that people like. So that stuff is getting good engagement. So we’re posting, we’re doing a little bit of advertising on Instagram. And then we’ll go through influencers. So people that have you know, several 1000 followers, and our chefs will send them products and say you make something and post about it.

 

Evan Henthrone  07:08

Awesome. Okay, so can you just back up one second? And just kind of explain like, how do you go about selecting growers that you want to work with? And can you explain that process?

 

Parker Shorey  07:19

Yeah, so we really, we really love this idea of a partnership of farms. And the selection process is it’s really just getting to know farms, and often they’ll come to us or Margaret will recommend them. We’ll share our partnership agreement, which is kind of like the criteria of what we look for in a farm and the methods of harvesting, drying, and caring for the saffron and then we’ll have a conversation about what they’re what they’re looking to do and how we can support them. We were pretty, we have three farms right now that we have multi year agreements with. And we’re just always in touch with them around harvest season we’ll come and work with them and buy their saffron so it kind of works well for farms because they don’t have to think about packaging, website, legal, customer care, shipping. We just buy will buy their saffron from them. And we’ll take care of that stuff.

 

Jerry Clark  08:24

So Jonathan, just Jonathan’s a farmer here in Wisconsin, and how is that? Have you connected with? With Parker’s Lemonfair saffron? I know last podcast we had with you, sounded like you were selling everything locally, you had enough to kind of meet the local market here in Wisconsin or wherever you’re getting it. But how do you see that market developing with someone like Parker who’s close to a, you know, major Metro city like New York?

 

Jon Pylpiv  08:52

Yeah, I had an opportunity to look at Parker’s website. And I’m just blown away at the quality, but also just the storytelling of it and being able to capture it. And something I would aspire that I could do locally here, just not quite there yet. So I think it’s just being able to tell the story of what saffron is, how it can be grown. And then really focusing on that local quality, because as a spice it is one of the most adulterated, you know, spices and I think, you know, having that connection with with where it’s grown, who it’s grown by, there’s this trust in this relationship built between the end customer, you know, that the person, the chef, the person who just wants a nice quality meal with a unique spice, they can get down the road from them. So I, we, a couple years ago, we registered a domain, “WisconsinSaffron” we had, you know, ambitions of wanting to just kind of help connect other small growers in Wisconsin because growing a lot of saffron for us isn’t isn’t an ultimate goal. We’re limited in our space. Plus, I think it also hedges us against from catastrophic disasters or any maybe insect or bacteria or any kind of fungal thing that could happen, or weather so we want to work with other growers in the future. Currently, we’re selling exclusively through Camo Cooperative, which is a cooperative, that my wife Mara and I and other military veteran families and small businesses started in Northeast Wisconsin near the Appleton area. So we’ve just been exclusively selling to our customers through there. But we we want to work with other farmer veterans. Through the farmer veteran coalition, we have the homegrown by heroes label we can use to help promote that. And I think there’s just a lot of opportunities, but we wanted to get really good at trying to grow and make sure that we can replicate it from year to year and seasonto the season. And that’s where the saffron that and the work that Arash and Margaret and the team is doing in Vermont has been credibly helpful. So and then also work like Parker’s doing and other growers, which is helping us all elevate our standards, but also, you know, ambition to do more. So I’m excited about the future.

 

Jerry Clark  11:03

Great. No, I really appreciate that that network that you’ve developed through that co-op and having these connections. And Margaret from a from a national standpoint, or I guess North American standpoint, as this is probably grown in Canada. I can’t recall if we covered that a little bit last time. But it sounds like there’s an opportunity here based on what Arash said that we import 17 tons of this stuff. And there’s a market that obviously we have untapped. So what’s the potential out there for small farms to really get into this?

 

Margaret Skinner  11:36

I think the potential is awesome, really. And it’s something that’s being developed slowly. Saffron is such a new concept for a lot of people, that the first thing is just to introduce what the crop is and what’s involved with growing it. It’s not for everybody, there’s some people that had started growing it in 2017, and they decided eh, they didn’t, their back wasn’t up to bending over to pick the flowers or whatever, or it was too fiddly. Um, so But then there are other ones that started small, and they’ve expanded to a quarter of an acre or more. So um, it really varies from individual to individual. And every year, every, every week, we get multiple calls from people around the US who are interested in in trying it out.

 

Jerry Clark  12:36

And Margaret, and Arash again, for listeners, they’re from the University of Vermont, but are there other universities looking at saffron right now? Are you guys the leaders and kind of cutting edge here and that’s why our podcast is called the cutting edge, we try to find guests that are doing unique things and moving forward.

 

Margaret Skinner  12:54

Um, there definitely are, at least there’s at least one other university and that’s the University of Rhode Island. I think there are a couple of other universities that are interested in getting into it or maybe are just getting started, but we haven’t they haven’t necessarily reached out to us,some of them. But we have worked closely with the University of Rhode Island in the past. This is this is really a new crop and it’s taking a while for the USDA, which is a primary funding source for for grants. They it’s taken a while for them to embrace the concept. And it’s still a little bit too exotic for them in general. And I think that’s why they don’t collect data on saffron production in the United States. Not yet. I think as the industry increases, it will become a crop worth reckoning with but it’s not quite there yet.

 

Arash Ghalehgolabbehbahani  13:58

When we are talking about other universities are working on saffron is like it’s not just about crop production. I know for example, Howard University in DC, Howard University, they are working on assessing the effect of saffron or Saffron Extract on colon cancer or anti carcinogenic effects of saffron. Because saffron has pharmaceutical effects. I’m pretty sure that lots of researchers they are working on that aspect. And I believe the first paper has been published in United States many many years ago. I’m talking about 150 years ago about pharmaceutical effect of saffron on some of the disease like anti-depression thing and you know, anti-carcinogenic but I cannot remember the name and the exact year that that paper published but I will try to find it and publish it and put it on our website.

 

Margaret Skinner  15:03

Generally speaking, my understanding is that most of the saffron that is imported into the United States is used for culinary purposes. Um, but whereas I think overseas, the use of saffron medicinally is much more widespread. And there needs to be more research done on the quantitative capacity of saffron to address some of these medicinal issues. And one of the things that is exciting to me about what Parker has done is when he comes up with his agreement, he has specific guidelines for how the saffron is prepared for drying. So the saffron stigma is reddish or orange, orange. And then at the very end of it in the at the base of it, it’s kind of yellowish, now Parker doesn’t want the yellow bits on there. So he he asked the growers to pinch that off. And whereas there are other growers that aren’t as particular about that. And so when we look at the research done on medicinal aspects of saffron, there needs to be some consistency, with regard to the way that product that they’re testing is produced, and I’m not sure that’s there yet, which is why we end up with a lot of variability in the results in terms of how effective it is. So, hopefully, over time, the US industry will be more standardized so that we can start addressing that better.

 

Evan Henthrone  16:53

Awesome, so Parker, can you just kind of follow up with what Margaret was saying with kind of your standards or your your grade of what you want to take or accept into? And what happens to to the product that you don’t accept? Like, what what happens to it? Does it just go into a waste system? Or is it? Do we have a new market for that for that waste? Or is it? Can you just follow up on that?

 

Parker Shorey  17:16

Yeah, yeah, there’s a lot there. Actually, I, I agree with Margaret, I think quality standards should be priority number one, quality and food safety standards should be priority number one, as we’re building this US market. You know, when I was first visiting farms 2017-2018, driving all over Vermont, there was some saffron that had leaves in it and a little bit of dog hair, and obviously every year things get better and better. And I think we have a partnership agreement that is very clear on the process we find, yields the best, the best output the best results. Everyone does it a little different. I think this is kind of a secret sauce is how you, you grow it and then how you go about drying it and curing it. I’m curious to hear Jonathan’s POV. You know, I love what he’s doing with his content. We, we’re inspired by the colder growing regions in like northern Italy. And traditionally, that was dried over a woodfire. So we try to finish the drying process with a little bit of that woodfire. We kind of like it in the radiance it brings out. But again, this is kind of a secret sauce. People have oven sun dried dehydrators, fire, it depends where in the world you’re doing it and who you talk to. It’s it’s quite fascinating, I think.

 

Margaret Skinner  18:41

So one, I just I wanted to mention one other thing, we’ve spent a fair amount of time in our workshops, talking to growers about how to dry their saffron. And it’s it’s not as cut and dry as you might think. And there have been instances where people have not, you know, you think you say to somebody, well, you just dry it until it’s dry, the stigma, just keep drying it until it’s dry. And the first year that we started working with growers, they would say, okay, it’s dry, and they would show us this kind of limp stigma that clearly wasn’t dry, it was dry ish. And it’s critical that the stigmas are dry because when they go into the jar, if they are not dry enough, they will mold and there have been people that have produced saffron, and it just it’s in those particular cases, rare but they do occur where they haven’t been dried enough and then that that does need to be destroyed. But um, I think that’s why it’s great to have Parker saying no, here are the standards that I have. It must be dried at this you have a temperature, I think that you expect them to dry it out. Yes?

 

Parker Shorey  20:06

We do Margaret but we have to, we have to allow some flexibility around that temperature because of because of what you described. There’s so many variables, if they’re picking on a on a wet rainy day, versus a very sunny day, you may dry it a little bit differently. So we have some flexibility. And just an agreement about that exact temperature. I will, I also just wanted to answer your question about the dregs or the the leftover. So we, we’re only buying from farms that we feel have excellent saffron and adhere to the standards, there’s always some leftover saffron because when we when we jar it, we want full threads, and kind of beautiful complete threads for the consumer. But there’s always going to be some threads that break and are at the bottom of the jar. We’re I think that’s an interesting area to explore. We we looked at a saffron sea salt that included some of those smaller smaller threads. So it’s it’s like a white sea salt with the red threads in and people loved it. I liked it too but we found over time that shelf stability wasn’t great. So we continue to tinker with that. We’re also looking at a candle, so an infused saffron candle. And in general, I think this idea of saffron waste, you know, you have the petals, you have the stamens and then maybe you have some of the actual stigma. There’s a lot of people trying to figure out, can you dye with this? Can you put it in something else? Can you make a tea with it? And I think that increases the total kind of income per flower, which is what farmers want.

 

Jerry Clark  21:45

Yeah, it seems like there’s a lot of investment in that harvesting, from what we learned from Jonathan, last week. And Jonathan, maybe you can make a comment that along the lines of that Parker’s going down here, but it seemed like yeah, there’s a lot of labor and effort, a lot of work going into getting that little thread and you’ve got this other part, flower parts that are are just sitting there. So any any comments along those lines that Parker just mentioned?

 

Jon Pylpiv  22:11

Yeah, I know. He’s talking about the different elements. And I think of like sometimes when it’s snowing, and you’re harvesting, so we tried, I think in 2017, it was when we had our first harvest on a small scale. And we had like an NESCO dehydrator, and we’re trying to get a certain temperature, we weighed it, when it was the wet weight, that’s after it was harvested, and then weighing it after it was dried, to try to get this consistency. And then we tried a few batch, you know, after subsequent years, and it was never consistent, like a certain amount of time or temperature at all, it was situational, depending on the season, the weather, but just in general, so I think you have to have a feel for it. And make sure you’re closely monitoring. And I think for us, we tried all the other things like trying to separate the stamens and the petals, dry those, you know, because I think some of the initial workshops in Vermont that Arash and Margaret referenced, you know, there is potential to use other parts of it. And as a small scale producer, I want to increase the value added products that I have. And if it means it’s something that I’m growing, that’s quality, and I’m taking a lot of time into producing it. I want to maximize that, I don’t like wasting things. I came from Ukraine as a young child, I don’t like wasting anything, especially food. You know, maybe the flower just has some beauty to it and some aromatic nature of the aromatic nature of it is also really just nice. So I opened up a jar like I have here a jar from our 2017 batch. And I just love that aroma and just the smell and how it still you know carries and lingers after it ages some. So I certainly, yeah, I think what Parker’s doing is it’s I want to explore more other drying options. But like you said, it varies from season to season.

 

Evan Henthrone  24:01

Awesome, so there’s a lot of a lot of factors that go into producing such a quality product. And I’m just wondering, Arash and Margaret, can you kind of touch base like, have you guys done research around how much how much income is being made and revenue is being made off of this product?

 

Margaret Skinner  24:18

So we do a survey every year among saffron growers, mostly in North America, or that’s sort of what we’re focusing on. And it’s certainly not complete at this point. But um, every year the number of growers that are producing more saffron is increasing. So for example, in oh 2017, most growers were growing less than 28 grams. And so you got to realize that growers, if they’re lucky, they’re selling it for $30 to $50 a gram. And so, um in the last year in 2019. Um, there were maybe, almost 20% of the people that replied, so out of, I think we had about 125-150 people were applying. So almost 20% of them were producing between 29 grams and 100 grams. And so that was just showing an increase over time that more and more people are growing more, which makes sense, because the whole way saffron, you plant it the first year, you don’t get a whole lot of flowers, you only start getting a better yield in years two, and three. And so we are seeing that increase over time. Um, just one other thing, we tried to get an information on was where are people selling it. And that’s changing every year too. And I think the pandemic has had a big impact on that. So for example, in 2018, um, oh, most people were selling from their home farm stands, this past year in 2019, which sort of includes 20, as well. Um, like, 31%, were selling it online. And so those kinds of things are changing. Some of that’s because people have websites now. And so they’re promoting it on their website, so they can sell it by mailing it in through mail order. And so those things are evolving all the time. And I know that there are growers, not just in Vermont, but throughout the US who want to expand, or, refine how they how they do it, there aren’t very many Parker Shorey’s out there. And he really focuses on Vermont. So most of these other growers need to figure out their own way of of marketing it, there are a few that are using saffron as an agritourism link. So they they might have an Airbnb, and they get the people to come during the harvest season so that they can help harvest it and dry it. So so there’s lots of different avenues that people are trying.

 

Jerry Clark  27:27

So Jonathan, through your Camo Co-op, is that more just direct marketing? Are you going through the co-op to the to the end user? Or are you going directly through to the user?

 

Jon Pylpiv  27:39

Yeah, so So kind of a combination of both right now, since we’re the founders and one of the member owners of the co-op. We’re just going right to the consumer. But as we move forward, we’re going to expand, some will be at our stand some mailing, you know, online order, focusing on the Wisconsin area. And I think part of it is he talks about agro-tourism. It’s such a beautiful sight to see, you know, in October, November when they’re blooming. We want we want to offer like workshops for people so they come and get their own corms, they they see us plant it, and they take those home and plant that and then they see how many threads they get. So it’s part of the experience in just celebrating it. Because like, as I think, you know, I mentioned previously, you know, when your other vegetables are kind of on their end of life there for the season, saffron is at its peak and it just like adds some optimism for the next season. So I love that aspect of it and we will continue growing saffron and expand.

 

Jerry Clark  28:34

Go ahead Parker.

 

Parker Shorey  28:35

I would just really I really agree with what Jonathan, said the the saffron blooms are the purple and the yellow, the red at the same time you’re getting fall foliage, and the aroma is like something to behold. So really, I’m I think that agritourism, when COVID has passed is a really interesting idea. We also shipped some corms out to people and they were able to see some blooms. It’s a little bit of a roll of the dice that first year you get maybe one flower out of three quorums. But people, it’s like a surprise in the dreary, dreary fall weather.

 

Margaret Skinner  29:15

Another thing that’s worth mentioning, and maybe Arash can talk about it. In Vermont, we have a fair amount of solar arrays now because we’re trying to be more energy efficient as time goes on. And one of the issues is there are some regulations or restrictions with regard to building solar arrays that they cannot be built on agricultural land. And the reason is because the legislature or the government doesn’t believe, they’re concerned about losing viable agricultural land. And so we were, we partnered with a solar company to look at saffron as a potential crop that could be grown in association with conventional, you know, rec, solar arrays. And Arash, maybe you could talk a little bit about what some of your results were.

 

Arash Ghalehgolabbehbahani  30:16

Oh, actually, we have seen great results from that research side. And one thing that I want to mention is like when I had a conversation with the guy from that solar array farm, you know, the manager of that electricity generation site, he said, we wanted to show that we have heart, we, we are green, we want to use the land, not just for industrial purposes, we want to grow them because we have land there. So don’t forget, Saffron is a low maintenance crop. And they want to produce something at the same time, they want to have a product have a crop that doesn’t need that much, labor and workers all the time to go there and reduce the potential of making damage on the panels and solar cells. So we started doing planting saffron in those sites because of these reasons. And the yield was awesome. In one of one of the treatments that we had in the raised beds in those farms, we harvested around 17 pounds of saffron per acre, when we convert the data is like 17 pounds of saffron per acre, you’re talking about 119k dollars. gross revenue, that’s like huge money. And it shows that the conference that hold the data that we harvested so far or collected are great.

 

Margaret Skinner  31:53

Well, the other thing from an environmental standpoint, commonly in these solar arrays, they get weeds growing, and they don’t like the weeds growing. So they spray herbicides to keep those weeds down. And so if it was possible, instead, to be growing a crop, especially a high value crop that doesn’t take a whole lot of time, then maybe these solar array owners would be less inclined to use a herbicide and more inclined to try and develop the land as an agricultural benefit. So that’s a win win. Opportunity.

 

Jerry Clark  32:39

Yeah, I think we’re seeing. Yeah, I agree, Margaret, I think we’re seeing that movement, even even from a groundwater quality standpoint, this permaculture keeping permanent cover on the ground, especially when you have a I mean, the solar array. That’s great. Seems like a perfect fit. So Arash these were in a these were in raised beds not planted directly into the ground, or was there? With your research was there kind of a little of both in seeing how things perform?

 

Arash Ghalehgolabbehbahani  33:06

Yeah, a little of both, I feel that if you compared the in ground and raised beds, because saffron is originally from arid and semi arid area. And having them in the raised beds makes a better drainage system, you know, making soil moisture content, like more appropriate for them. So that was reasonably tested, and we hope that we publish the results very soon.

 

Margaret Skinner  33:33

So you asked before, so how much or how much are growers really making from saffron. And, um, again, we have encouraged growers from the very beginning to start small, and they heeded our warnings or our advice. And so by design, the industry has been relatively small area wise, but just based on our last survey, about 18% of the people that replied, were making this, is gross now $2000 to $5,000, um, 5% of them, were making $10,000 to $50,000. Um, so it’s showing a couple of things, that the the the revenue that people are generating is increasing every year as both the amount of area that is being cultivated in saffron is increasing, but also more people are growing it and it gets older and so it’s getting more, there’s just more harvest for that for that original field establishment. And so, um, we have never necessarily promoted saffron, as a single crop for a grower. We have always focused on how can we support small diversified farmers to increase their revenue potential. That’s not to say there aren’t some growers who have said, I really want to focus on saffron alone. There are some, some growers in Vermont, they just want to grow saffron. And that’s it. There’s some out in California, that’s all they do. They don’t grow a bunch of vegetables and all these other things. But in general, most of the people that are growing saffron, are doing it as part of a total farm program.

 

Jerry Clark  35:38

Jonathan, I believe that’s kind of how it fits in, like you mentioned earlier, you know, it’s ready to harvest when a lot of your other work is wrapping up for the year here in Wisconsin.

 

Jon Pylpiv  35:48

Yeah, exactly. We wanted to be as a complementary crop towards the end of the season. Because you know, the rest of the fields are in, you know, you might start getting some of the frost. And then you see like, the eminence, winter approaching, and that’s like, the last kind of hurrah, and just kind of optimism, so maybe, you know, it’s it’s a nice distraction from all the other work to do yet to kind of get ready for the winter. But yeah, we wanted it as a complementary, so people come out to the farm, or support us, but then you know, maybe also buy some of those other products and food that we have, you know, on the farm, when maybe they wouldn’t be as inclined to come out because it’s getting colder. So.

 

Margaret Skinner  36:25

One other thing that’s worth noting, we’re getting ready to hold a saffron workshop. In an online version This year, one session is going to be on March 11. And another one is on March 18. And if they go to the North American Center for Saffron Research and Development, they will find the link to register.

 

Jerry Clark  36:55

Yeah, I think that’s a great opportunity for podcast listeners, our listeners, and then we will share that through our website as well. So if Margaret and Arash can get that information to us here in Wisconsin, we will definitely put that on our website and make those connections with the growers. Anything else, Evan, before we wrap up?

 

Evan Henthrone  37:15

No, I think that’s good. I think this has been a really quick and good discussion. And just a nice segway from our, from our original discussion on it. And I’ve learned a lot again, I learned a lot the first time so I’m really thankful that we were able to connect with you guys today, just a further a discussion on saffron.

 

Jerry Clark  37:33

And I don’t know that we’re really through with this group yet, as a podcast, we’d really like to spend maybe another session on just production. Last time we kind of took that overview, but really maybe and then today, more marketing, what’s the opportunity for a small farm, how it fits in with the system. But if we can invite you all back in a few weeks, I think we’ll try to address production and really dive into you know, how do we make this stuff grow, especially from with Jonathan here in Wisconsin. I think that’s our goal, but the climates very similar in Vermont. We really appreciate everyone joining and Parker, especially with that marketing side and we’ll invite you back too Parker as far as that that avenue to try to distribute this this growing crop.

 

Margaret Skinner  38:23

Thank you very much.

 

JASON FISCHBACH  38:24

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