Vermont Quince & the Pandemic

Like every other specialty food producer, Vermont Quince was impacted by the coronavirus in several ways including sourcing, production, product development, sales, marketing, and financing.

Over the last 18 months, we made the following production-related decisions:

1) at least temporarily to stop production of seasonal and tiny batch products at community & farm kitchens at which VTQ had been permitted for several years - this means that faves like our quince-rhubarb & quince-crabapple-ginger conserves and our quince-ginger salsa have been unavailable in 2021 but hopefully will be back in 2022;

2) to rely even more on wonderful co-pack partner for production of products sold through distributors and directly to wholesale accounts. Fox Meadow is a two-person family business that we chose for their fastidiousness back in 2014 so we knew that all necessary precautions would be taken;

3) to process the 2020 and the local quince harvest at the Western Massachusetts Food Processing Center run by FCCDC. Fortunately, the necessary equipment testing began before the kitchen was closed in March 2020; and 

4) to make progress toward a new product line of shelf-stable quince paste.  Vermont Quince was fortunate to receive a small grant from the Sole Proprietor Stabilization program toward the purchase of two machines needed for production and packaging with an eye toward introducing the new product line in early 2022.

Please let us know if you have any questions!  Contact Nan at info@vermontquince.com.