Business Focus

Zack Woods Herb Farm grows a wide variety of medicinal herbs sold as dried herbs, live plants, and fresh herbs. Based in Hyde Park, their products are all certified organically grown or ethically wild-harvested on the farm. After 16 years in business, Jeff and Melanie Carpenter recently authored a book published by Chelsea Green titled “The Organic Medicinal Herb Farmer” as well as spearheaded the creation of the Vermont Herb Growers Cooperative to offer certified organic, Vermont-grown medicinal herbs on a commercial/wholesale scale.

Loan Summary

Jeff and Melanie have been working with the Vermont Herb Growers Cooperative to design a “batch dryer” for drying herbs. They applied for a $30,000 Business Builder loan to cover the costs of designing and building one of the first prototype batch dryers.

The Backstory

As Jeff and Melanie ramped up their production, they began to see the potential for selling more products on the wholesale market, yet they knew that due to increasing scrutiny from the FDA, more testing for microbiological contamination like yeast, mold spores, and other fungi was critical. With their new batch dryer, they can dry the herbs faster, increase capacity and efficiency, and mitigate the potential for fungal contamination. They were also tired of having to get up in the middle of the night to stoke the wood-fired dryers and spent many hours laying each batch of herbs out in a single layer on trays.

They worked with Chris Callahan, an agricultural engineer from UVM Extension, to hold a design workshop with four other members of the Vermont Herb Growers Cooperative. This allowed Zack Woods to minimize the cost of construction and also allowed each of the farms to build slightly modified versions of the batch dryers. Each farm is sharing the information they learn to inform others who are interested in building similar dryers, and the focus is on ease of construction and affordability.

The Carpenters’ batch dryer is heated by a 400,000 BTU propane heater which is ducted to direct heat into 3 connected, modular 8’x8’ bins. The goal is to dry leaf crops in 12-24 hours, and root crops 24-36 hours, approximately half their previous drying time. The labor required to load the bins is also significantly reduced, as the truck can back up and deliver the product directly into the bins, instead of having to spread the herbs out on trays manually. In the past, they dried all their herbs in a modified hoop house using passive solar and wood heat but found it labor-intensive to keep the wood-fired furnaces stoked continuously throughout the night.

Thanks to the VFF I get to sleep through the night, instead of waking to stoke fires and rest easy knowing the increased control over the dehydration process means we can consistently and more efficiently produce a higher quality product.

Now, by electronically controlling airflow, humidity, and temperature, and reducing UV exposure, quality increases, drying time is reduced, and more essential oils and other valuable medicinal compounds are retained in the herbs.

The Bottom Line

The new batch dryer will allow Jeff and Melanie to increase dehydration capacity and efficiency while preserving the valuable medicinal compounds in the herbs they grow. And they will be sharing what they’ve learned from the design and construction process to help other farmers develop similar low-cost systems.

We attended a fundraiser and made a donation to Pete’s Greens when the barn burned. We really liked what Pete said about how he was going to pay those donations “forward”. Now we and many others are very fortunate to have access to loans through the VFF as a result of that “forward paying” philosophy.

This is the VFF’s second loan to Zack Woods Herb Farm.

Photos courtesy of Zack Woods Herb Farm.