2026 was a great lavender year in the Capay Valley. It was a great year for everyone else too. By August, the buyers we wrote to kept giving us the same answer: we're covered. The ones who weren't could buy imported lavender for about $7 a pound.
We sell ours wholesale at $45.
We didn't close that gap by cutting our price. We closed it by changing who we wrote to and what we said. Here is exactly what we did, step by step, with our real numbers.
What changed when we changed how we sell
Since mid-August we've found and tracked 444 businesses that look like the people who already buy from us. We wrote to 219 of them, every message short and personal. 61 asked for a sample or got one. 13 became paying wholesale customers, and 8 of those have already ordered again. We sold 168 pounds wholesale between mid-August and the end of October. The largest first order, 51 pounds, came from a cold email five sentences long.
None of this took a sales team. It took a method, and doing it every weekday.
Step 1: Sell to people who already buy it
The slowest sale there is: talking a business into using something new. The fastest: finding businesses that already use it and giving them a better reason to buy yours.
So before we wrote to anyone, we looked hard at our own customers. Who bought, who reordered, who said no, and why. The no's taught us as much as the yes's. Sixteen of the businesses that turned us down grow their own lavender. Eight had a supplier they were happy with. Eight said price. That told us who not to spend time on.
Then we went looking for more businesses like the ones who said yes: tea companies, herbal formulators, soap and skincare makers, bakeries, distillers, syrup makers. If your crop is already on their menu or ingredient list, they're a real prospect. If it isn't, they're a project.
Step 2: Check three things before you write
Before I write to a business, I check three things on their website or Instagram:
Is the ingredient already in their products?
Do they say where their ingredients come from?
Do they sell online or ship?
Three yeses and they go on the list. Fewer, and I move on. It keeps me from writing to businesses that were never going to buy.
Step 3: A five-sentence first email
Our first emails were long. A PDF catalog, a price list, a paragraph about the farm. Almost nobody answered.
A first message has one job: get a yes to something small. Ours says what we grow in one line, says something real about their business, and offers a free sample. No attachments, no links, no prices. Somewhere between 45 and 75 words. Whoever reads it can tell a person wrote it to them, because one did.
Step 4: Sell proof, not price
Any buyer can find lavender for $7. What they can't easily find is a farm they can call, a lot number, a lab sheet for that lot, and the same lavender on the next order. That is what the extra money pays for.
So when a buyer brings up the cheap option, I don't drop my price. I send the sample, the lab sheet and the lot number, and let them compare. One buyer tried our samples and came back with an order for 40 pounds.
Step 5: Follow up on day 4 and day 11
Most farms send one email and wait. Buyers are busy, not saying no. I send three messages and then stop: the first one, a single line on day 4 ("Still happy to send you a sample"), and a short last note on day 11.
Every business sits on one sales board, from first message to reorder, so nothing slips. Anyone who got a sample and went quiet goes on a call list. A phone call to someone who has already tasted your product is the easiest call you'll make all week.
Step 6: Offer a second grade, never a discount
When a buyer balks at the price, a discount tells them your price wasn't real. We offer a second grade instead. Chef's Select is our cleanest lavender, for anything a customer will see. Our bulk grade gets one cleaning step instead of two and costs less, for uses where nobody sees the bud. The buyer gets a lower price and we keep ours.
Every farm has its own version of this: a second cut, a different pack size, a bigger order at a better rate. Work out yours before a buyer asks.
What it costs
The tools are cheap. Finding and checking one prospect costs us about 3 cents. The real costs are samples, postage and time, mostly the time to do it every single weekday. That's the part most farms can't keep up with, and I understand why. We have crops to look after too.
Want this run on your product?
I'll run the method on your product for free. Tell me what you grow or make, and I'll send back the six steps written for your crop, 10 U.S. businesses that already buy it, and the first message to the best one. If you'd like us to run it with you after that, everything is at siliconvalleygrowers.com/vera.
We keep the culinary lavender bud market for our own farm, so VERA works on everything else: lavender oil, hydrosol, bundles, skincare, and other herbs and botanicals.
Matt
Purple Valley Lavender Farm, Guinda, California