Entrepreneur Sarah Frey's Growing Season: From Rural Poverty To Billion-Dollar Business
Having a profound positive impact on a young woman’s life is the one thing that kept entrepreneur Sarah Frey writing her book whenever she found it too difficult or painful.
Sarah, author of The Growing Season: How I Built a New Life--and Saved an American Farm, grew up in rural poverty on a farm in Illinois and faced a lot of personal challenges as a child and teenager.
She took over the farm—now Frey Farms—which operates farms and related facilities in seven states and distributes fruits and vegetables across the country through Its Sarah’s Homegrown label.
Sarah has been described by the New York Times as “the Pumpkin Queen of America” because she sells more pumpkins than any other producer in the United States.
When Sarah took over the farm it was on the brink of collapse. As a teenager, she was able to secure contacts with the likes of Walmart distribution centres and, even though she says she didn’t know what she was doing, Sarah slowly grew the farm into a billion-dollar business.
As an entrepreneur, Sarah felt that clients and business contacts knew only her successful side.
“No one knew what my background was . . . that I grew up in rural poverty. By the time the world got to know me I was polished up and individuals thought: ‘Oh, wow, isn't that great? She's taken over this family business. Look at this young woman who's running her dad's farm’.
HOW PERSONAL SHOULD YOUR BOOK BE?
Sarah explains to show host Josh Steimle: “It was easier to let people believe that others had given me the business and not let them know I'd had a very scrappy upbringing.
“It was easier to be taken seriously in meetings and dealings with major corporations if they thought she’d come from a background of education and maybe had a business degree or I attended an Ivy League school.
“None of that was ever really true. When I thought about writing such a personal book like a memoir, I was terrified that the world would find out that it wasn't always easy, and I never told anyone what my background ever was. . . I let them create their own perception. In my life it was better to just do that,” explains Sarah.
CHANGING SOMEONE’S LIFE
A chance encounter with a young bartender called Olivia kept Sarah going when she wanted to stop writing her book. Olivia had a business question to ask Sarah, and while doing so she compared her life to Sarah’s. In that moment, Sarah made an exception and shared her background with Olivia, explaining that “What you see is the finished product. This isn’t how it started.”
Sarah’s story transformed Olivia’s life. About three years later, Sarah and Olivia encountered each other again. Olivia ran towards Sarah and said: “Oh, my God, you changed my life!” Continues Sarah: “Her life really was changed! She was there at the same restaurant where I'd met her but she was no longer behind the bar. She was there celebrating her birthday with friends and colleagues and her life was in such a different place.
“I remember walking out of it was at the restaurant that evening and feeling a sense of fulfillment,” says Sarah. “My words and my story had impacted her life and caused her to actually make a change in her life that bettered her life.”
This encounter and Olivia’s words became Sarah’s inspiration whenever things got tough writing her book, because she had to recall difficult memories. “Writing the book . . . was for really all the Olivias. That was the person, the mental image that I would dial up, when things got really hard for me during the writing process.”
YOUR BOOK CAN CHANGE SOMEONE’S LIFE
To entrepreneurs writing an inspirational memoir-type book, Sarah says even though it may be painful work at times, it can change someone’s life for the better.
Sarah says that changing someone’s life for the better was enough motivation for her. Then, of course: “Knowing that multiplying effect, now that I've written the book . . . how impactful that is, I would tell anyone considering writing a book that you don't know until you really put it out there, you can't think that it's not going to help.”
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EPISODE TRANSCRIPT
Josh Steimle
Welcome to the Published Author Podcast where we help entrepreneurs learn how to write a book and leverage it to grow their business and make an impact. I'm your host Josh styling. Today, our guest is Sarah Frey. Sarah is the founder of Frey Farms, which operates farms and related facilities in seven states, and distributes fruits and vegetables across the country through its Sarah's Homegrown label. Sarah has been described by the New York Times as the Pumpkin Queen of America, because you guessed it, she sells more pumpkins than any other producer in the US. And she's the author of The Growing Season: How I Built A New Life And Saved An American Farm, published by Random House. She's also going to serve as the co-executive producer of the upcoming ABC television production of The Growing Season, based on her story, Sarah, welcome to the show.
Sarah Frey
Thank you for having me, Josh, I am so excited to be here with you today and to share my story.
Josh Steimle
Now, thank you so much for being with us here, Sarah, I'm excited to learn more about your story. And we'll dive into the book. We don't have Sara on camera with us here today, just in case, you're watching this on YouTube. But there's nothing wrong with your technology or anything. But Sarah, tell us a little bit about your background growing up, because you are not like most of the authors I've interviewed because I don't interview that many farmers. So tell us a little bit about your background growing up and how you became a farmer and how you became a big farmer.
Sarah Frey
So, really, Josh, I never dreamed that I was going to be a farmer. Even though I grew up on a very small farm in Southern Illinois, I spent most of my youth planning my escape from rural America. And, you know, it's really interesting how life sort of, you know, the best laid plans, right, and then life sort of happens. And ultimately, all of my dreams of escaping the farm and rural life suddenly transitioned and change when I was a teenager, and I made the decision to stay behind on the farm and ultimately save the family farm. And in doing so, through the process of writing the book, The Growing Season, through all of that reflection, I realized that at the moment, it wasn't about . . . when I made that decision to stay behind, it wasn't about saving a piece of land, or part of our heritage. I grew up with four older brothers and we all worked every day on that farm growing up; and I was the youngest kid, so I was the last one left on the farm. And I knew that if I left, there wouldn't be anything really to come back home to. And so I made the decision to stay behind and to continue to build and grow the business that I had started as a teenager selling fruits and vegetables out of the back of a pickup truck to grocery stores. And I felt like if I continued down that path, and sort of took charge of my own destiny and continue to build my business that ultimately I could make the farm successful. And there would be something then in the future for my family to come home to so and throughout the process of really writing the book and digging deep and telling a lot of those stories I really I came to the realization that it wasn't about saving land, it was about saving a family.
Josh Steimle
So was there any pressure being put on you by your parents or by your brothers? Or was this your own decision?
Sarah Frey
To write the book?
Josh Steimle
To stay on the farm to stay there? Take over things.
Sarah Frey
No, there was no pressure put on me. My brothers and I had really all pretty much decided at a very early age because the farm was I mean, our way of life on the farm. And I write about this pretty extensively about my childhood . . . there were many aspects of the way that we were raised that were at times pretty harsh and brutal. I mean, we grew up in rural poverty. And it wasn't that idealic, you know, farm setting that, you know, most people imagine when they think of life on a small family farm. It was it was was a pretty tough way of life. And we watched throughout the years as we grew up, but as you know . . . the farm was mismanaged and in so many ways as well. And we were always living in some kind of fear. You know, whether it was fear of, you know, losing our home and the land that we were growing up on or, you know, fear of many other things really. So by the time we were young teens, we all knew that the best course of action was to get off of what we call the hill and get an education and move to really major metropolitan areas. So my brothers as they left, one by one, to go to college had no intentions of returning home. And because I was the youngest was very, it was a very, very sad affair, each time one of my brothers would leave. Because that meant I was growing up too, and that my turn would come someday as well. But I missed the closeness and the family bonds that we all had when we were much younger growing up, no matter how hard life was. So there was really no pressure from my siblings, and there was certainly no pressure from my parents, because at that time, their relationship was kind of falling apart. And, you know, everyone had sort of given up hope.
Josh Steimle
And so why did . . . what gave you hope, as a teenager? Your brothers have left your parents relationship is not doing so hot. What was it that made you say, you know, what, I'm going to take over this and things are going to be different?
Sarah Frey
Well, you know, even I was surprised at that decision, because I had made a . . . it almost in a matter of moments. So having spent so much time my entire life, figuring out how I was going to escape rural poverty. And in just a moment, really, I would make a decision that would forever alter the course of my life. And I still to this day, I can't tell you exactly what happened in it in a young teen's mind, I can describe for you the moment in which I was walking the last horse off of the farm. And it felt like a very lonely place, I was the last kid left, and it was really sort of up to me to . . . sell, you know, the remaining assets that were on the farm, as it was sort of crumbling all around me. And it was more of a function of tying up the loose ends so that I could leave to and that evening that I was walking the horse that we had sold to the trailer. I remember looking around, and I watched as the sunset, the farm turn this really beautiful golden hue, and there are magnificent sunsets on this piece of property where I grew up in Southern Illinois . . . And it's up high on a hill. And as I was looking out over the fields I I did it took my breath away Is it as a young teen, having I looked at it very differently for the first time. And I think I looked at it differently, because I felt like it was one of the last times that I would see it. And I looked at the horse, the horse looked at me. And then I just had this moment, it was almost a moment of divine intervention, and really the first time that I asked myself if I would actually consider staying. And the question was, what if you stayed and as I, you know, thought about the memories that were made there and you know, the all of the blood, sweat, and tears that we had poured into that farm over the years, it was almost like I could feel my I could feel my feet sinking into the ground like something was literally pulling me into the ground. It was like molasses, you know. And in that moment, I made the decision that I wasn't going to leave that I was going to figure out a way to right the ship and buy the farm and ultimately try to get it on a course that was successful for my family.
Josh Steimle
So how did you do that? What did you do the next day, the next month next year? What did you do to turn to start turning things around?
Sarah Frey
By this time I had moved out by the time I was 15 years old. And when I was 16 I had a summer melon delivery route that I had taken over. When I was a little girl I used to join my mom in the summers to go on this melon delivery route. And so I took it over when I turned 16 and I had the old family pickup truck and I would deliver fresh produce to all of these different independent grocery stores. And so I had a business that I was running. I was attending college and high school simultaneously. And I was making money and living on my own at a very early age. So I felt like I had really I felt like I had a market and then I had some business experience under my belt already, and so I wasn't really afraid of what I was going to take on. And as most entrepreneurs know, you have to always figure out how to do more with less, right. And I knew that I needed to think of something . . . a crop that can be grown something that I could sell in my already existing business, that I could afford to grow on such little acreage. Because this was a small farm, if you combine the farm that I grew up on with the with the farm, the little farm down the road, it was it was all less than 100 acres. So 80 acres that I grew up on a little over 15 down the road. So I had to challenge myself to think about what it was that I could do that would be innovative on such a small piece of property because it wouldn't make sense to grow just like say corn or soybeans. Because first of all, I couldn't afford all of the, you know, very expensive equipment that it would have taken to operate a grain farm. And there wasn't enough acreage to support a grain farm. So I decided that I would grow pumpkins. And that ultimately was the crop. Now, I didn't know that the day that I made the decision. But I figured that out fairly quickly, because I actually started selling pumpkins on my delivery route. And the more I learned about that fruit, the more I realized, Hey, this is something that I can actually start to grow. And I am the soil on this on my home farm is actually conducive to producing this this crop that's of a higher value than corn and soybeans.
Josh Steimle
So was there a point then when you realized, Hey, this is actually going pretty well, I'm going to make it and I'm going to be okay. And in fact, I can grow this and make this a lot bigger.
Sarah Frey
Yeah, he there was and really at that point came with my business as I was bringing in other retail clients, grocery stores, grocery store chains that I was delivering to, I actually was doing business within delivering fresh produce to Walmart division one stores, and the division one stores that I worked with were taking melons, watermelons and cantaloupes, even though they weren't converted to Supercenter selling groceries, yet they were able to buy products from me, because my fruit and vegetable products had a longer shelf life than say, strawberries or blueberries. So they would, they were able to sell those in those stores. And I had about 12 to 15, Walmart division one stores that I delivered to, and the volume that they were taking from me, even, you know, even back then was so much more than a regular small grocery store. And I remember driving past this distribution center that was being built in Olney, Illinois. And one day, there was a sign up front and it said Walmart DC 6059. And I thought, wow, wouldn't it be great if I could just take my whole, you know, pickup truck . . . load of melons, and trailer watermelons and drop it off at this facility. And then they could go to all the stores and I could haul more melons. And so one day I saw that there was life at this at this DC and it looked like they were getting ready to open. And I thought I'm just gonna go in there and find out, you know, what the, what the possibility is, what the potential is for me to be able to deliver the melons here instead of taking them and making all of these individual stops at their stores. And that day I did and I had the good fortune of running into a woman with . . . you know, I had no appointment and I just walked into the building. And I asked if they were going to going to have a produce buying office and I had the good fortune of meeting this woman named Mora Marshall, who was literally there setting her office up. And I was introduced to her by a gentleman who was working there at the distribution center. And you know, that day I said I just explained to her that I was delivering fresh produce to all of our stores currently or many of our division one stores currently. And then I needed I would be able to do more if I could just bring my products there and she said That's great. That's fantastic. I'll take three to five semi-loads a week of watermelons when we open this DC. And I remember I you know, I was a kid at this point at a ball cap on, you know, work boots and a . . . probably I think it was like a Ford one-ton dually with a 16-foot trailer something attached behind it out in the parking lot. I wasn't thinking about semis and I didn't own a semi I didn't have a CDL but when she said semis and she would take that many loads a week if I can get them for her. I didn't tell her any of those things. I can tell her that I had a pickup truck in the parking lot or that I wouldn't be able to do it. I just I just nod and I and I told her Yes, I'll take care of that. I shook her hand and we exchanged contact information and the rest was history. But when I walked out when I walked out into the parking lot, I was looking at this this big red rig that I had that was nowhere near the size of this. And I thought, What am I going to do? And At which point, I started calling brothers and I, the first brother that I call this, my brother John. And I said, I think I just did something that ultimately will change our life. And I need you to come home from college. And oh, by the way, can you drive a semi? And if not, you're going to need to learn very quickly, because we're gonna have to start delivering lots of watermelons.
Josh Steimle
That's fantastic. That's such a great story. So how did things progress from there, give us a little bit of the history of the business from there until we reach the modern day.
Sarah Frey
So we started delivering the fresh fruits and vegetables to more grocery retail chains. You know, Walmart was one of them. But we started picking up other large retail customers, we started growing, you know, the crops on our own on farms. And on the farm, the, you know, the family farm that I had purchased, we started growing pumpkins. And then we started looking at commodities that would extend our season. And then we started looking at different growing regions across the country, which could extend our selling season. And then one by one, my brothers . . . my other brother started to come home, and join us in the business as the business grew. So there were enough of us between, you know, all five of us kids that we were able to spread out geographically, and you know, start to really kind of follow the sun, whereas the crops that we were selling were concerned and work with other growers. And then we just reinvested the profits that we were making back into land and expanding into other areas. So today, if you look at berry farms, we're still a very family centric company very, you know, we still have the family farm, way of doing business, but we're doing it now in seven different states: Florida, Georgia, Illinois, Indiana, Arkansas, Missouri, and West Virginia.
Josh Steimle
Amazing, thanks so much for sharing that story. So now, let's transition over to the book. At what point did you say I've run this business I've had this experience, I should write a book about this? Was it somebody else who told you ‘You should write a book?’. Was it your own idea? What was the genesis of the idea for writing this book?
Sarah Frey
Well, what happened was the New York Times did a piece on me . . . a woman by the name of Kim Severson wrote a piece on really, I thought she was coming out we were going to talk about food and pumpkins and all the different ways that you can cook pumpkins. And so I was really excited for the piece to come out in the in the food section of the New York Times. But after Kim that spent some time at the farms, and she learned more of the human story, that was really the story that she wrote. And then the, you know, the side story was, hey, here's how you stuff a pumpkin. And it was really more of my story, which picked up a lot of interest from the CAA and others that wanted to represent me in writing a book. And it took me a very long time to get my head around that because up until that point, it was so much easier for me in my life and in my business . . . No one knew what my background was, no one knew that I grew up in rural poverty. By the time the world got to know me I was polished up and I, you know, when individuals met me, they thought, oh, wow, isn't that great? You know, she's taken over this family business. Look at this young woman who's running her dad's farm, you know, and I never corrected anyone my whole entire life: it was easier to let people believe that others had even given me the business and not let them know that I'd had a very scrappy upbringing. And it was almost easier for me to be taken seriously in meetings and in my dealings with major corporations if they thought that, you know, I had come from a background that was what they had envisioned in their minds when they met me and that maybe I was even educated in such a way that I had a, you know, a business degree or I had went to an Ivy League school. And none of that was ever really true. So, for me, when I thought about writing such a personal book, like a memoir, I was terrified that, you know, the world would find out that it wasn't always easy, and I never told anyone really what my background ever was, and I never told them that I you know, I never told them . . . I let them just sort of create their own perception, and then I just never corrected that perception. And in my life it was, it was better to just do that. And I never took the time, really . . . and ultimately, I had to get my head wrapped around sharing so much of my personal story in such a way that would open me up personally to, you know, others . . . in the opinions of others in a way that I really hadn't done my whole life. So, it took a while to get my head around doing that. And then finally, I decided on an agent and then ultimately sat down and took my stab at the proposal. And I remember even how difficult it was to write that proposal. And then, you know, ultimately, ended up partnering with Random House and, you know, wrote the book, and there were many times, I won't lie to you, Josh. There were so many times throughout the process of writing that book, and digging deep, deep for the truth and trying to recall all of those stories of my past that there were just some really difficult moments for me where I thought, What in the world am I doing? Why would anyone ever do this? This is so hard, and you have to relive a lot of those experiences, and it's exhausting. And then, you know, for me, I thought, Oh, my gosh, what, you know, what's the CEO of this company gonna think of me when they read this? You know, what's the, you know, there are different parts and pieces in the book where I'm like, Oh, my gosh, what are people gonna think? And, you know, will I lose business? will people think less of me? I had all of these doubts. That crept into my mind. And I thought, Oh, my gosh, what happened to the . . . you know, the teenage girl that didn't care, you know, I looked like a carnival act, hurling through town with melons piled up in the back of my pickup truck, a mile high, you know, having breakdowns and flat tires, every 30 minutes, and I didn't care back then, you know. I was on a mission to, to improve my life, and to really get out to get out of rural poverty. And I didn't care what people thought of me back then. And I thought, what, what happened to that girl? Why do you care so much now? And I had to get over those moments when I would, you know, lay in bed at night and just just worry. And then there were times when I told myself, okay, why don't you just write a cookbook, alright, tell them that you don't want to do a memoir now and just write it cookbook, it will be so much easier. So anyway, I finally, through the help of a lot of really great friends and family members and people who, you know, love and support me. Ultimately, they helped me sort of fend off all of the scary monsters that kept creeping into my head when I thought about writing such a personal story. And then once I got it done, and cast it out into the world, it was you know, at that point, there's no taking it back. So it was actually a very liberating feeling. Once you once you do that, it you know, the feeling is so completely liberating.
Josh Steimle
So when you were having these doubts about the book, was there any core thought that kept you going that you kept going back to to say, I don't want to write this, but I've got to do it because XYZ?
Sarah Frey
Yeah. I think it was . . . I think it's safe to say that there is this girl who I envisioned in my head, and to her character's inspired by this real-life woman that I had met, a young woman named Olivia. And Olivia was bartending at the time that I met her that she had an idea for a business, and I spent maybe 12 minutes of my life 12 to 15 minutes of my life with Olivia. She had a business question that she asked me and, and she made a comparison with her life and what I had done. And I said, No, wait a minute. I had told her I said, No, no, no, this isn't how it started. She was one of the very few people . . . stranger really, but I ever combined it in that hey, what you see now is like the finished product, but that's not how it started. And this is this is what I did. And this is what I went through at a very early age to get to where I am now. And it wasn't all just easy, and I didn't know what to do. And that talk that I gave Olivia about how I did my first deal. And I told her the Walmart story and inspired her to go out and to take on this new business venture that she felt like she was going to be good enough to do but had these doubts of her own. And ultimately that story inspired her because she thought wow, if Sarah did that, then I can do that too. And I don't have to have everything figured out just perfectly all I need to do is get started. And if she had the courage to do it, you know, I can find the courage to do it. And I saw that girl, that young woman, about two and a half to three years after she and I had that brief interaction. And frankly, it was really it was just this moment where she runs up to me and she tells me Oh, my God, you changed my life. And her life really was changed. She was there at the same restaurant where I'd met her but she was no longer behind the bar. She was there celebrating her birthday with friends and colleagues and her life was in such a different place. And I remember walking out of it was at this really great little restaurant in Washington DC called The Monocle on Capitol Hill. And I remember walking out of The Monocle that evening and feeling Oh, that's like this sense of like, fulfillment, you know, because my words and my story, the short story that I shared with her, had impacted her life and caused her to actually make a change in her life that bettered her life. And I, then the guilt set in and I thought, Oh, why can't I just be happy that I inspired Olivia? Why do I now have this nagging feeling that because I haven't shared more of my life, how many other Olivia's could have benefited from that same talk and from that same story? And then it dawned on me that I really did need to figure out a way to share my story because of, you know, all of the other Olivia's that were in the world that I could possibly reach and inspire. So I went to bed that night, I'm thinking, Okay, I'm gonna wake up tomorrow. And this will have felt like a really good idea. But this particular feeling of guilt is going to fall away. And tomorrow, it's going to be that, then I'll, then I'll restart the conversation and in my mind . . .but tomorrow my better sense will kick in, I won't want to, you know, write a book. And that wasn't the case, it was actually the feeling was more overwhelming. And I couldn't shake that sort of feeling of guilt that I had that along the way I hadn't shared more of my story with other young women, men and women really. So that was the inspiration for writing the book . . . was for really all the Olivia's and, you know, that was the that was the person, the mental image that I would dial up when things got really hard for me during the writing process. And there were some things in there that quite honestly, I didn't want to share, I didn't want to share with the world. But then I also knew that there were individuals that would be able to relate to many of the things that I went through, and that the story, ultimately would benefit them and that they would know, hey, you're not alone. Life doesn't have to be perfect. And you can still love people who are imperfect people, and you can still be successful, no matter where you come from. And you can create the life that you envision for yourself. Even if you do grow up in rural America, you can be anything and do anything that you want. Ultimately, all you have to do is just be persistent, and find your courage and, you know, work really hard. And this is America is still the greatest place in the world to live. And it doesn't matter who you are, where you come from, or, you know, age, race, gender, none of that matters, that you can still do anything that you want to do.
Josh Steimle
Such a great story. Being on the other side of it now, Sarah, what advice would you give to an entrepreneur who is in your shoes might have vie, ten, 20 years’ experience? they've gathered all this knowledge, but they feel like, nobody cares about my story. Nobody cares about what I know, I'm just one of 1000s of entrepreneurs out there. Why should I write about what I've been through? Why should I share my experience? Who's gonna care? What would you say to that entrepreneur?
Sarah Frey
I would say, you know, the same thing that I said to myself during that, you know, a period of trying to decide if I was going to write the book or not, and that is, what if it changes just one life? What if it really impacts just one person's life and changes the course of their history? And that to me was enough and then knowing that that multiplying effect, now that I've written the book, how impactful that is, I would tell anyone considering writing a book that you, you don't know until you really put it out there, you can't think that it's not going to help. And everyone has their own unique individual story. And there is interest in the challenges that people's face, you know, the successes and the wins. And, and it's not that you have to sit down and write a how to book I mean, my book, The Growing Season is certainly not a how-to book, it's just stories. And I think many people probably learn better through stories, then, hey, this is how I did it, this is what I did, here's the step-by-step, here's the playbook, you know. You don't really need the playbook. People learn through personal stories and reading about them, and then then they're more interesting as well. So I would encourage anyone listening that, you know, your story does matter. And it will, it will matter to, you know, whoever so chooses to pick it up and read it. And then there's also sort of, you know, the self-discovery process, as you're writing in the book, that is invaluable. And I went through that, and I, it forced me also to, you know, face a lot of things that, you know, I mean, I'm, I'm certainly not a perfect person. And when you when you read the book, you find out I'm not perfect. And when you have to go through that process, and share things with the world that don't necessarily reflect well upon yourself, I think this also a bit of a humbling experience. And it also makes you aware, and it makes you want to improve and to get better and to grow as a person.
Josh Steimle
How long did it take you to write the book?
Sarah Frey
Well, gosh, probably two and a half years, like an all total, by the time I started to get my head around it to the time that I started audio recording a lot of the stories, and then, you know, I just sort of the process was like just throwing everything up again, like, Okay, I'm gonna put it all out there. And then that was probably the toughest part having to read everything. And then you have to sort of pull some things back and then lay things out and in a chronological order. Things not all just perfectly laid out in chronological order. And then Mars really just sort of photographs of your life that, you know, you sort of, you know, lay out on a table and then arrange and in sort of a story arc, and that it took a while. And I when I say two and a half years, I mean the process of really getting my head around writing that up to the time that it was actually ready to turn into my editor.
Josh Steimle
Did you have any help during this time? You were already working with Random House at this point? I assume, right?
Sarah Frey
Yes, I started the process on on my own and got pretty far down the road. And then, at some point, random or seat the CIA. Actually, I'm trying to think how I can't remember the order. Whether we had I think before Random House. I think it was before Random House bought it. I can't remember what the order was. But at some point, we brought in a ghost to help me craft the story arc. This was the first not my first book. But my first memoir, obviously. And so I had some help laying that out. And some fabulous help laying that out. And pulling all of that together and helping with the flow of it. And then, you know, once that once the pro came in and helped me do that, then it was done.
Josh Steimle
And it was published in August of 2020. Is that correct?
Sarah Frey
Yes. A COVID book.
Josh Steimle
Yes. So tell us what that process was like launching the book and how have things gone since then?
Sarah Frey
Well, nothing was normal about how the book was launched because of COVID. So everything was you know, all bets were off the table. There wasn't the normal book tour, there wasn't the book fairs. It wasn't, you know, The Growing Season didn't really get to enjoy really any of those normal. I don't know, media sort of, you know, hits and, you know, ways to promote it. So it's really just grown from a grass roots level. We did do some media surrounding it, but it has the story has just taken off and travel via word of mouth, people that have, you know, left reviews behind online and ultimately told their friends about it. I've done a lot of virtual events. And it's still growing. I felt like sometime in late fall, I thought, Oh, okay. Alright, that's it - I'm done with the book! You know, things are winding down. But after the first of the year, I felt I feel like as of January 1, it was like this, this, everything sort of just like reemerge. And it was like the book was launching for the very first time. And, you know, people were interested in it. And I think a lot of that had to do with the fact that people got the book over the holidays, they learned about it from friends and family, and they're still learning about it. It's still growing. So it's like the slow bill. It's, it's, it wasn't like, instantly, wow, it's successful. I mean, we had some bestseller list where we were like, a Midwestern bestseller. We were Amazon's in Amazon's top 13 books for a few days. I mean, we there were some early wins. But I feel like now there's this sort of grassroots sort of movement behind the story. And then it's getting shared by individuals and recommended by individuals to others. And, and that's how it's continuing to grow.
Josh Steimle
And tell us about this TV show. How did this come about?
Sarah Frey
So that was . . . that happened pretty early on. When, you know, the book ultimately was picked up by a producer, several producers actually bid on optioning, the book for film, and a lot of producers had the, you know, for various producers at different ideas and how they saw the story playing out from a cable series to a major motion picture to a network television series. And I interviewed many different producers before I decided who I was going to partner with. And I ultimately ended up partnering with Danny strong, who was one of the co-producers on the hit TV series Empire. And I met Danny and I liked Danny, but I loved his vision for how he wanted to continue to tell the story. And I knew that he would treat it with great care. Obviously, it's, you know, going to be dramatize. So I knew Danny wanted to the idea that he had for the platform was network television, which made sense for me, I felt like I would also have a little more control over, you know, sort of the story, if I was going to get to be an executive producer on the project, and that I could continue to provide creative. So even though it will be dramatize for television, I think that it also has the opportunity to live on over many, many seasons, if successful, and continue to grow. And, you know, we don't really get a lot of stories. We don't see a lot of stories based in the Midwest playing out on national television, really, you know, there isn't a lot of content where hey, here's this, here's this farm family from the Midwest, you know, so are really family from the Midwest in general. So I think that, you know, there's a, there's a unique opportunity to, I'm really excited about it, I'm excited about the opportunity to be able to go into people's homes and, and, you know, share a life with them that, you know, maybe they're not really accustomed to seeing or being being a part of, and also to share, you know, this big crazy family of mine. So, you know, that shows also very family centric, and I think it will, I think it'll be interesting. Hopefully, we'll get to pilot this summer. That's the plan. And we hired a really incredible cable writer named Colette bernsen. And she's been, you know, working diligently to get the outline finished. And I'm hoping that I'm hoping that pilot happens in the next few months. And hopefully, we'll be on air and fall of 2022.
Josh Steimle
That'll be great. I'll look forward to that. Do you get to do a cameo role in it or anything?
Sarah Frey
I don't know. I don't know if I was necessarily meant for television. But you know, we'll see.
Josh Steimle
Well, thanks so much, Sarah, for being with us here today and sharing the story behind the book. I've got just one last question last.
Sarah Frey
Sure.
Josh Steimle
Do you actually like pumpkins?
Sarah Frey
I love pumpkins. Are you kidding me? They make me smile. Pumpkins make everybody smile. How can you not love pumpkins? I don't trust people that don't love them.
Josh Steimle
So maybe you will be writing a recipe book one of these days, huh?
Sarah Frey
Absolutely, absolutely, I'm sure there will be a lot of things. I mean, my focus right now is on the Sara's Homegrown Brand and getting more of our beverage products out there, and just continuing to develop food products that are indicative of, you know, the way that you know, the lifestyle and the way that we're able to eat: Clean, fresh and healthy on the farm. So that's the joy that I want to continue to share with the world and to continue to make products that are made from clean, simple, and delicious ingredients that are good for you and you know, good for your family.
Josh Steimle
Great. Well, thank you so much for being with us here today, Sarah. Again, the book is The Growing Season. And you can buy it at Amazon or anywhere else that great books are sold. Thanks so much for being with us here today.
Sarah Frey
Thanks for having me. Take care and have a great day. You know, I do have one more personal question, if you have just a minute. Sure, hit me.
Josh Steimle
Um, we hear a lot these days about the troubles and challenges that are hitting family farms in the United States and suicide rates with farmers and all these things. And I'm just curious, do you have any . . . is there I haven't read the book yet. I'm excited to read it. But is there . . . do you approach that topic at all of policy? And what's happened to kind of family farms over the past two decades? And some of the challenges? Is that part of the book?
Sarah Frey
Yeah, I think you can get some of that from the stories. Um, you know, that's . . .it's interesting that you bring that up, I mean, the farmer is the eternal optimist, right. So, you know, that, you know, things have been very, very tough and farming. And, you know, that's not changing anytime soon. And our weather patterns are not doing anything to help that. There's a lot of risk in farming. For me, one of the things that I've been very passionate about is the need for a legalized workforce and access for farmers to gain access to a workforce to help them harvest their fruits and vegetables. That's something that I've advocated for many years. And outside of that, I . . . it's one of the things that probably bothers me the most is that over 50%, of all fresh produce that we consume, and America is imported. And, really, that ultimately, that goes back to NAFTA and all of the farmers that lost their farms and their businesses. And, you know, I'm in South Florida right now, and years ago, I mean, just these beautiful tomato farms, just up their fields of tomatoes, and hacking facilities were shut down because of the imports coming in from Mexico. And ultimately, we want to ask ourselves, you know, Hey, what happened to the American farmer? We have, we have really no place to look in the mirror. And, you know, with COVID, I think one of the bright spots that came out of COVID really was just people became . . . when your food supply is threatened, and your favorite items are no longer on the grocery store shelves, and people get real interested real quick. And Hey, where did that go? You know, where does it come from? Who grows it? I don't understand why isn't it on the shelf? So I think consumers started asking more questions and actually really started to really learn the value, and n learn the value of, you know, the food supply in America and understood a little bit more about why it's important to support, you know, their local farms and American farmers. So I think that that is one of the things that we will have coming out of this pandemic, that will that will be good. I think we have a lot of challenges. I think that, you know, there's always been uncertainty in weather patterns for farmers, right. So farmers are used to dealing with that, but we're seeing a lot of we're seeing changes. I mean, it snowed in Texas last week. Yeah. And in Mexico, so they lost . . . I mean, I don't know how many acres of their potato crop but then they also lost. You know, I think there was about 25 or 30 30% of their Mullen crop was in the grass. I lost it. It's gone. It's snowed in Mexico. So the food supply is being threatened by, you know, a lot of these catastrophic weather events. And we have to be mindful of that. No, this is great. Well, thanks so much, Sarah, you've been very generous with your time. I appreciate this. This will come out in several weeks, but we'll send you an email when it's coming out and we'll be promoting it all over the place. Awesome. Thanks so much for your time. Josh, have a good one.
Josh Steimle
Thank you Sarah. Bye Bye.
Sarah Frey
Take care. Bye.
Josh Steimle
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