Burlington County Farmer Shares Business Success Secrets at Agriculture Conference

Rose Robson, a fourth-generation farmer from Wrightstown, shared her marketing strategies at a recent agriculture conference in Atlantic City. She emphasized using a single word to define your business mission and focusing on customer experience to build loyalty.

ATLANTIC CITY — A Burlington County farmer has distilled her family business strategy into a single, powerful concept.

Rose Robson, who operates the fourth-generation Robson Family Farm in Wrightstown, told attendees at the Northeast Agriculture Conference in late January that choosing one defining word transformed her approach to business. Speaking at Harrah’s Resort Atlantic City, she explained her philosophy.

“I think having a word is probably the most important thing you could do for your business. A word is basically the shortest form of a mission statement. Our word at Robson’s Farm is ‘cute,'” Robson said. “If it isn’t cute, we’re not saying it, we’re not posting it, we’re not stocking it at our farm stand, we’re not making it into merchandise.”

The farm, located next to the Joint MDL Base (previously McGuire Air Force Base), now focuses primarily on fruit orchards. Robson returned to agriculture after working in medical sales, a field she found profitable but personally unsatisfying. This marks her 13th year managing the family operation.

According to Robson, the business operates two main divisions: floral and produce. Customers receive 32-ounce containers and can harvest their own flowers. While she previously handled wedding arrangements, she discontinued that service due to excessive stress despite good profits.

The farm’s offerings include apples, peaches, paw-paws, donut peaches, cut flowers, and sunflowers. Robson applies her single-word branding strategy to analyze nearby competitors as well.

“The closest businesses to me that do something similar to me would be Strawberry Hill Farm, which does peaches and apples, and Johnson’s Locust Hall Farm, which does a lot of stuff, almost everything,” she explained.

“Johnson’s Farm is the other direction from us and they offer everything, weddings, hayrides, all kinds of baked goods and they offer premium products. The word I use for their farm is ‘luxury,’ and I would put Strawberry Hill as ‘classic,’ and we at Robson’s Farm directly in the middle, are ‘cute,'” she continued.

Robson detailed how she leverages digital platforms including the farm’s website, Facebook, and Instagram to gather customer feedback continuously. Weekly email newsletters help strengthen relationships with existing customers while attracting new ones, boosting revenue in the process.

“The only bad review we had online was someone who simply said ‘Bad.’ And it was in February and I’m pretty sure it was a disgruntled neighbor — 99% sure I know who it is, so we don’t even count that one,” she noted.

The farmer described her evolution in finding the right business model. Initially, they delivered vegetable packages to homes, which succeeded but required too much driving. Farmers’ markets followed but proved time-intensive with minimal returns.

“It was a nightmare, for me at least, so in 2019 we started saying ‘vegetable free in three,’ meaning in three years, we’re going to really commit to doing just orchard fruits and stop doing all the vegetable stuff. It just was not working.”

“Ultimately, I want to be in my own happy place and now I’m there, we also want to be the cutest and that is really important to me, so the scope of what we do is apples, peaches, paw-paws, you-cut flowers, and we have room to grow other unique crops, these items need to be unique hard-to-find and of high quality fit into what we are already doing. I’m putting in two new products this spring and it’s a lot of fun,” Robson revealed, though she kept the new offerings secret.

For flower picking, Robson charges $12, with the standard 32-ounce containers typically accommodating around 60 stems.

“Pay only for what you pick is what separates us from other farm businesses in our area, others charge an entry fee, so I’m constantly thinking about how we can add value without spending a ton of money,” she said.

Customer perspective drives all marketing decisions, according to Robson. She developed wallet-sized cards for fruit picking customers as an example of this approach.

“You have to come at it from a customer-focused perspective, what’s in it for the customer,” she emphasized, describing her Peach Pass program where customers provide email addresses in exchange for cards offering 10% discounts on picked fruit. During harvest season from July through October, she distributes peach and apple scented scratch-and-sniff stickers.

The farm’s popular paw-paw walks originated from an unexpected source. Several years ago, a National Geographic reporter inquired about special paw-paw events at the farm. Since none existed, Robson and her team created guided walks where visitors could pick from limited paw-paw trees. These September events continue today during what she calls “paw-paw insanity month.”

Robson stressed the importance of training staff to handle common customer questions effectively.

“Because nothing is worse than asking an employee a question and having him or her stumbling and stuttering and not sure who to ask. It doesn’t inspire much confidence in what’s going on at the farm,” she concluded.