CHESTERFIELD — After 12 years of hauling plants to farmers markets — even during pregnancy — and balancing full-time jobs in between raising organic seedlings, this year was the first growing season that Anna Maunz and Chris Reid finally felt that Bare Roots Farm had bloomed into a stable, successful business.
“First season we were like, ‘We did it, and we can have a nice summer with our kids,’” Maunz said.
The Hilltown farmers began delivering their plants to Gardener’s Supply in Hadley during the first week of April to fill the store’s $36,000 order. The first couple of deliveries were seamless, but then their compensation stopped coming. Trusting their longtime partnership with the brick-and-mortar store, which began when Tom and Janine Giles operated the business under the name Hadley Garden Center, Bare Roots Farm delivered all the ordered plants and awaited a payment of $27,000.
Instead of a receiving a check, the couple learned that the company declared bankruptcy, allowing it to continue to sell their plants without paying them for their labor and materials.
“Gardener’s has always been really lovely,” Maunz said. “We had a wonderful relationship with our buyer with them, and that’s probably why it feels so hurtful. It came out of nowhere, at a time in our season where we cannot recoup.”
Gardener’s Supply filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy June 20. According to the court documents, the Burlington, Vt.-based company owes $8.2 million in debt to Bank of America and Northfield Savings Bank alone, and over $4.5 million to 30 unsecured creditors, or creditors without collateral. Many of these creditors are major corporations like UPS, Google and Meta, but some are local nurseries out of Vermont like River Berry Farm and Fairfax (Vt.) Perennial Farm.
This list of creditors, however, is not all-inclusive. Many smaller local farms and nurseries supplied plants to the employee-owned company’s stores in New Hampshire, Vermont and Massachusetts for this growing season. These small businesses are owed a drop in the bucket of a multimillion-dollar debt, but the money lost for these farms and nurseries has a big impact. With big banks and corporations first in line to receive money, it’s unclear when, or if, Gardener’s Supply will pay these small farms, giving them no choice for now but to swallow the loss during an already difficult time for their businesses.
As explained in the court documents, Gardener’s Supply made several poor financial investments after an initial boom in sales during the pandemic. First, the boom in sales caused company stock to rise. When employees retired, their stock payout exhausted a lot of disposable funds. When the pandemic gardening craze died down, bringing sales back to normal, the company decided to restructure. Unfortunately, the damage was far too great to save the financial situation.
“Despite cost-cutting measures, the challenges posed by increased competition, rising shipping expenses, tariffs, and escalating marketing costs have proven insurmountable,” the company wrote in an emailed statement.
Maunz and Reid clarify that they are no longer angry, and in fact empathize with the employee-owned company because they know firsthand how hard it to run a small, nature-based business. Sarah Voiland, of Red Fire Farm in Granby and Montague, echoes the sentiment, and remains focused on communication with Gardener’s Supply about repayment for over $9,000 worth of plants.
“Running these types of businesses with fresh products of different kinds, they’re very challenging,” Voiland said. “There’s not great margins, and if people want to have those kinds of resources, we all need to support them.”
This is the second time a Red Fire Farm customer has filed for bankruptcy, Voiland said. While that customer still has not paid those accounts, Voiland said the company is still one of their customers, and she hopes to maintain Red Fire Farm’s relationship with Gardener’s Supply as well.
“We get paid for current deliveries we’re doing, but there’s a previous balance that hasn’t been paid, and there’s older balances that are sitting there, waiting to see if they get released from bankruptcy,” Voiland said about the first customer who filed for bankruptcy.
Reid and Maunz, however, are more reluctant to do business with non-local companies again. The couple say they understand financial troubles occur in business, but they wished there had been more upfront communication about the possible payment issues.
“It seems like, based on the way they were paying and when everything stopped, they made a decisions to go into bankruptcy, and took all the growers and sold them so they could stay in business, keeping that cash on hand so they can settle the bankruptcy,” Reid said. “They made a perfectly legal choice, but it has entirely screwed over all the growers.”
Gardener’s Supply is one the largest customers of Twenty Acre Farm in Hadley, according to farm founder Patricia Zuzgo. While Zuzgo declined to comment on how much the farm is owed, she acknowledged that it’s “a sizable amount.”
“We’ve always had a good rapport up until this year, and we’re hoping for the best.” Zuzgo said. “We will see what happens.”
Gardener’s Supply has $4 million in cash on hand, which will help settle the bankruptcy while the company works out its sale. So far, Gardens Alive LLC in Indiana has offered $9 million to buy the company.
In the meantime, Reid and Maunz asks western Massachusetts residents in guest column published in the Gazette to shop directly with farms by attending farmers markets, purchasing Community Shared Agriculture (CSA) shares or finding locally owned small garden centers.
Voiland, however, encourages people to continue to support Gardener’s Supply in Hadley to help them get through the bankruptcy and pay back all the creditors, including small farms.
“We have put in the cost for all the plants and those plants have been purchased. They’re out in people’s gardens.” Voiland said. “We’re really hoping to see that the farms that have this kind of commitment to growing for them [Gardener’s Supply] be prioritized in the repayment process, because it’s a big deal for us.”
Emilee Klein can be reached at eklein@gazettenet.com