In this podcast, we talk with Annette Mueller from Fattoria La Vialla in Italy on the importance of customers for biodynamic products. We exchange on their experience how to come into contact and keep customers for a long time that value biodynamic products. Last, we explore why designing products with a circular economy approach is valuable for the farm, but also for marketing.
Located in the middle of Tuscany, Fattoria La Vialla is a family run wine and farming estate that uses biodynamic farming and produces high-quality wine, olive oil, pecorino (sheep’s cheese), vegetables, and a lot more. Fattoria La Vialla is a “whole circular economy”: they get everything they need in the farm, and even better, they avoid producing waste they have no use for. Because of biodynamic agriculture, their products (e.g. wine and tomatoes) are proven by consumers and experts to be better in taste and quality.
At the moment, Fattoria La Vialla, with approximately 150 people for manpower, manages over multiple estates with a total of around 2000 hectares of lands for olive trees, wine, grains, vegetables, etc. Aside from the wonders Fattoria La Vialla is already doing with their regenerative practices, they also help boost agritourism in Tuscany as people can come to the farm for visits and vacation. There, people see how the products are made, which helps them understand how much effort, sweat, and work are put into each bottle of wine or olive oil they bring to their tables. In the same manner, consumers can also see the value they pay for when the goods are purely organic.
Guests who come to spend their holidays in Fattoria La Vialla started to enjoy the products the estate offers, and that’s how they got involved with direct-to-consumer distribution. They ship the products people order directly (no other distributor), so people can still consume the products even though they can’t visit the farm. Although they definitely want their goods to reach a broader audience in the future, a direct-to-consumer distribution, for Annette, is amazing—they have the freedom to receive feedback from their clients, whom they consider as friends, without anyone or anything coming between them.
