It spans more than 25 area farms, distributes local food through popular wholesale and CSA programs, and generated over $600,000 in sales last year alone. Until now, though, the MI Farm Cooperative has accomplished everything without a delivery truck to call its own. That’s about to change.

Late last month, the Michigan Department of Agriculture and Rural Development (MDARD) announced a series of “Underserved, Value-Added, and Regional Food System” grants. Those grants, which total more than $3.8 million for 51 projects, “support traditionally underserved businesses, cultivate value-added agricultural processing, and strengthen area supply chains and regional food systems.” MI Farm Co-op netted $44,080 to purchase its first in-house delivery truck.

“We don’t have a refrigerated delivery van of our own; we have been borrowing one from Food Rescue since we started,” says co-op president Jim Bardenhagen. “Now, Food Rescue is getting busier, to the point where they have so much work to do that their van wasn't always available when we needed it. That’s why we decided to go for this grant. It’s one of the first ones MDARD has opened up to vehicles, so it was a great opportunity.”

Bardenhagen, who owns Bardenhagen Berries in Lake Leelanau, co-founded the MI Farm Co-op in 2015 along with Nic Welty, who owns 9 Bean Rows in Suttons Bay. The pair saw an opportunity for area farmers to work together to increase efficiencies, grow customer reach, and maximize income potential. A decade later, the co-op is thriving, with more than 10 times the sales it managed in 2015, and double the number of farms involved compared to just a few years ago.

The basic concept of the cooperative hasn’t changed much in those 10 years. When Welty and Bardenhagen started the organization, they wanted a way for farmers to connect more efficiently and effectively with wholesale clients, including restaurants, schools, private chefs, caterers, or food markets. By marshalling the forces of multiple farms, MI Farm Co-op was able to offer a more comprehensive array of food options than any one farm could provide alone. Not every agricultural producer offers the same produce, meat, eggs, or specialty items. But by combining multiple farms into one alliance, the co-op could sell greens from one farm, tomatoes from another, eggs from a third, and fresh-baked bread from a fourth – all in the same transaction and delivery.

In 2019, MI Farm Co-op added a multi-farm CSA (community-supported agriculture), expanding its reach to individual consumers. The timing proved fortuitous: According to Operations Manager Christine Straley, demand for MI Farm Co-op’s CSA skyrocketed during the pandemic, amidst global supply chain anxieties and an uptick in home cooking and healthy eating habits among consumers. While Straley says CSA membership has “leveled off” since that pandemic-era peak, demand remains high and is expected to grow this summer as the co-op rolls out a new model.

“We’ve done a lot of different surveys with our customers, trying to figure out exactly what their needs and desires are,” Straley says. “One of the things we’ve heard most is that customers want a more flexible CSA.”

As with most CSAs, MI Farm Co-op’s program runs on a subscription model. The organization offers four CSA periods per year – one per season – and customers can choose from “half share” or “full share” subscriptions. For the 16-week summer 2025 CSA, a half share goes for $35 per week, compared to $55 per week for a full share. Each week, subscribers get a box of assorted goods from MI Farm Co-op’s participating farms, ranging from year-round items like bread and eggs to whatever produce happens to be in season.

In the past, each CSA subscriber got the same basic list of items in their box. Starting this summer, though, MI Farm Co-op will introduce a customization option, where customers can double up on items they love and opt out of things they don’t want or need.

“The feedback that came out of the survey was that, with consumer price increases and inflation, there is a little bit more budget sensitivity,” Welty tells the Leelanau Ticker. “People want to be able to choose products that they’re going to use more, and we want to be able to present better value to the community.”

Bardenhagen expects the customization model will lead to a big summer for MI Farm Co-op, especially given Trump’s escalating trade wars. “The supply chain issues that arrived with COVID may again occur, in terms of grocery stores being unable to get what they need in the supply chain,” he predicts.

Welty concurs, and points to the MDARD grant as a crucial tool for MI Farm Co-op to prepare for any potential spike in demand.

“This is a critical time for us, because of the growth that we've seen already and because of our goal for the co-op to be a key component to the resiliency of our local food system,” Welty says. “The awareness of healthy eating, and the need to find a single point to purchase locally from our farmers, has continued to increase. We’ve been making our vans pretty darn full to serve our wholesale and CSA customers. Gaining the capacity now to operate on our own, with our own timetables, is critical to making sure our operation can continue to meet the demand that we see here in northwest Michigan.”

Strengthening local food system resiliency is also Welty’s goal for a new project at 9 Bean Rows, which scored some money through MDARD’s latest round of grants, too. That $40,656 grant will fund the construction of “a small-scale milling facility” on the 9 Bean Rows property.

“We do not have the land or equipment to produce grain ourselves, but we have been recruiting farmers across Leelanau, Grand Traverse, and Benzie who have more of an open-farm layout and are looking for some product diversification,” Welty says. “By them growing grain and us having a mill and being able to offer top-dollar prices for their grain, hopefully we can give another business opportunity for farmers in the area that might be struggling with existing crops that aren't profitable anymore. If all goes well, we could be custom-processing grain, and then MI Farm Co-op could add freshly-milled flour to the product list.”

Pictured: Part of a MI Farm Co-op CSA box.