Sixteen years ago, sisters Jamie Choler and Sarah Choler Hale began Fair Shares CCSA to give the STL community access to the best that area farmers have to offer (and vice versa). Another sister, Malinda “Lindy” Sullivan, joined the team soon after, and the trio, along with plenty of help from dedicated staffers and employees, built Fair Shares into a go-to for fresh, high-quality produce, meat, and more. Jamie recently shared about Fair Shares’ past, present, and future while preparing for its 17th season.
How was Fair Shares born? We were in Biver Farms’ CSA, and we would get our share at the Maplewood Farmers Market, then get eggs from one guy and beef from another. We asked if it would be helpful to do a combined CSA…because it’s really hard for a single farm to grow all of the varieties that people like. In September 2007, we had a meeting for anybody interested, and we started with our first pickup in April 2008. The St. Louis Post-Dispatch had an article on a meat recall…[and there was also] an article on us that ran next to it. Suddenly, we had tons of people interested; we had more than 100 people on our waiting list for at least the first two years. It pretty much sold itself—that need was there. Local Harvest had just opened, and [there was] Earthdance Farms, and Andy Ayers had recently started his Eat Here St. Louis. The local food scene just took off at that time. We weren’t together on it; everyone’s brains were just there.
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How many subscribers do you have now? We have about 320, maybe a bit more. We also have half shares that come every other week, so that’s more people. And we have a shopping share that we offer to people who leave the CCSA, so we have about 20 people who just come in to shop. During the pandemic, we doubled our membership. We had, like, 400 and some odd members, and we had to change our whole operation to be outdoors and online.
How many farmers and vendors do you have currently? For produce, our first-tier farmers—[whom] we tell “if you grow it, we’ll take it”—there are probably seven or so. We have a second tier of farmers who contact us if they have something, and if we can add it, we will. There may be eight of those. Then we have six or seven meat farmers and a lot more vendors. It’s been pretty consistent.
What does the future hold for Fair Shares? We’ve been talking with Perennial City Composting about how we might add home delivery, because they go to a lot of people’s homes to pick up compost buckets every week. We’re thinking that might raise our membership, because some people just can’t make it to the Wednesday and Thursday pickups. I’m also looking to figure out what I’m going to do with the business. We’re looking at what the future of Fair Shares is going to be. I’m 68, and Lindy is 67—we’d love to work part time and not all the time. I’ve talked to the food community to see if anyone would be interested in buying Fair Shares, but nothing has come of it yet. I’m hoping that if we start home delivery and boost our membership, it might draw interest. I don’t want this to go away because it’s valuable to vendors, farmers, and members.
