Bean Club
Tim Hammerich
News Reporter
For farmers exploring direct-to-consumer business models, some of the best ideas might sound a little strange at first. Steve Sando of Rancho Gordo learned that firsthand when he decided to start what he thought would be a joke: a subscription club for dry beans. Today, that idea has grown into a thriving business with thousands of loyal customers.
Sando… “ Among my other millions of jobs, I was a web designer. So when e-commerce started to happen, I was right there ready to do it. It was very hard, and actually rural people were fine. It was people like, "I live in New York City, there's no way I'm buying beans through the mail." Well, they do now. You know, here in Napa, everybody has a wine club, and I remember hearing about a mediocre winery starting a new wine club, and everyone was all excited. I'm thinking, "Who needs another stupid wine club? You would be so idiotic. Let's do a bean club. It would be so funny." And we did it as a joke just because there were so many wine clubs. So it started with a couple people, and right now we're at 30,000 members. So four times a year, we send out 30,000 boxes. And normally we send out a couple hundred a day, but then the company has to stop four times a year as we prep for Bean Club. They've really got it down to a science now and the waiting list to get on it is 35,000 people right now.”
Learn more about Sando’s company Rancho Gordo at ranchogordo.com.
