Meet Alisha Wenger and Julia Coffey of Seeds Trust

Today we’d like to introduce you to Alisha Wenger and Julia Coffey.

Alisha and Julia, can you briefly walk us through your story – how you started and how you got to where you are today.
Seeds Trust was founded over 30 years ago by Bill McDorman, a well-known seedsman originally from Idaho, who now runs the Rocky Mountain Seed Alliance. Our current, president Julia Coffey signed up for one of Bill’s inaugural seed schools after living abroad in the South of France after graduating college. After seed school, Julia followed Bill down to Arizona to apprentice with him and learn the ins and out of the seed business and helping run Seeds Trust. Julia purchased the company from Bill about eight years ago and moved it to Denver. Julia handles seed growing/sourcing and general operations, now running the business from the seed packaging studio at Prism Workspaces.

After being introduced through a mutual acquaintance, Alisha started volunteering to connect Seeds Trust more with the local community and then bought-in as co-owner of the company in early 2018. Alisha has a background in food systems work and nonprofit development. She handles all business development, sales and outreach.

Great, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
One of our biggest challenges as an e-commerce business model is keeping up with competitor models such as Amazon. Many customers have grown accustomed to immediate processing and receiving their online order within a day or two of placing their order. As a small, two-person business working with live goods and small scale growers, it often takes us a couple of days to fill orders. During our peak sales season, February – May, it can take up to a week. We are always looking for areas to streamline and speed up the process, but it is a consistent challenge informing our customers about how their orders are processed, why our product is special and worth the wait!

Another challenge has been finding and fostering new seed farmers. As folks in the agricultural sector are aging out of their careers, we are actively looking for opportunities to include incorporating a seed grower training and apprenticeship program into our model. Farming for seed production can be tricky, but it can also be an additional revenue stream for current produce farmers looking to diversify their operations. We are encouraged by young folks looking to the agricultural sector for a career path, and our hope in the next few years is to acquire land to run a Seeds Trust seed trail and production center.

Seeds Trust – what should we know? What do you guys do best? What sets you apart from the competition?
Seeds Trust specializes in high-altitude adapted, regionally produced and sourced seed. Our catalogue consists of over 400 varieties of vegetable, herb, wildflower and native grass seed varieties. We carry open-pollinated (will reproduce true to form), heirloom (passed down from generation to generation), organically/naturally grown seeds. Our seeds make all the difference for our customers growing at altitude in the Rocky Mountain and Southwest regions – with short season, early fruiting, drought/frost resistant varieties, our seeds been tested and grown in the most challenging environments for over 30 years.

We believe business can save the world…

When a customer places a seed order with Seeds Trust, they are in fact engaging in a small act of revolution. They are voting with their dollars to support small businesses, local farmers, and responsibly sourced seed. Most importantly, they are playing a crucial role in increasing ecological biodiversity and resilient seed.

As a woman-owned business, we are committed to shaking up the system through providing seed saving resources & workshops, and helping foster seed libraries in our community. Humans have been growing, selecting and saving seeds since the beginning of civilization. However, in the past 50 years, we have lost over 90% of our collective crop biodiversity, placing our trust in massive agribusiness conglomerates and forgetting the time-honored ritual of saving seeds. When you save seeds, each generation becomes more well suited and adapted to the environment in which they are grown. The become more resilient to climate fluctuations and challenges. We believe saving seeds is one of the best tools we have to combat climate change and disappearing biodiversity.

What moment in your career do you look back most fondly on?
The proudest moment of our career as small business owners so far has been successfully completing and formalizing our business partnership to help Seeds Trust continue to grow and evolve. Finding a true business partner is a difficult task, and navigating the legal and financial steps to achieve this was not easy. Over the last year, our different perspectives and complementary skill sets have helped us increase sales and develop some fun new products and projects – so stay tuned for lots of exciting news in the near future!