Edible Food Find: Farmer at the Door
Photos by Michael Piazza
Pack the shed. Gather the egg cartons and vegetable boxes. Print the order slips. Send off the delivery driver. Take in new goods. Update the website. And finally, go out and harvest.
Every Thursday, Jess Petrie-Cummings and her husband, Brian, embrace a 12-plus-hour workday. It’s the day when the Brimfield couple pursue their full-time farming lifestyle to the max. Owners of the Petrie Family Farm, the duo also oversees Farmer at the Door, a decade-old central and western Massachusetts–based Friday delivery service connecting consumers and local providers.
“They’re growing all the things, but no one’s walking into their storefronts to buy their stuff,” Jess says. “We’re giving them exposure. We’re letting people try their items, and then eventually, it becomes a normalcy.”
The Petrie-Cummings family took over Farmer at the Door in 2021. Original owner Lauren Parente, whose father befriended Jess’s own dad long ago, moved to New Hampshire during the early days of the Covid pandemic just as demand for local goods increased. Then one of the providers for Farmer at the Door, the Petrie-Cummings duo decided to take over and try to scale the business.
“I certainly didn’t want to see my paycheck gone,” Jess says. “And I figured this was a great service helping new and little farms. It certainly helped my farm. We went from wondering if we’d have $30–40 of sales at the end of our driveway to $80 a week in microgreens orders.”
Farmer at the Door requires memberships, sold in six-month or annual packages, save for a Tuesday-only delivery package available for a handful of towns. While their online marketplace lives in perpetuity, orders close at noon each Tuesday ahead of Friday delivery.
Farmer at the Door’s deliveries are concentrated in Central MA, and they regularly deliver to Barre, Bondsville, Brimfield, Brookfield, East Brookfield, Fiskdale, Hampden, Hardwick, Holland, Gilbertville, Monson, New Braintree, North Brookfield, Palmer, Spencer, Sturbridge, Three Rivers, Wales, Ware, Warren, West Brookfield and Union, CT.
Starting at 10am on Fridays, the one-man-band driver Tony Sacco, plus Jess and Brian if necessary, deliver until the late afternoon or early evening. Delivery costs $12. Sacco gets half the fee, and the remainder is allocated to the gas for the pickup routes and time spent packing orders.
There’s a cost associated with keeping customers enrolled that isn’t fully covered by the fee itself. “We’re really at a breakeven point after all these years, and I wish people would realize that they themselves cost people money,” Jess explains. “People hear about a membership fee and delivery fee, and it’s one of the most frustrating things in the world because… That doesn’t even touch the cost of operating this business.”
Last summer, Farmer at the Door experimented with expanding to a second delivery day. It didn’t work logistically for the contributing farmers and their harvested-to-order goods. They’d also need a bigger space and refrigerated van, something Jess struggles to acquire a loan for. She spends about 20 hours per week on Farmer at the Door work, in addition to the full-time farming work.
Despite 117 paying members, Farmer at the Door only averages 25–40 orders per week. Jess would love to see that number rise, and also fill in customers from along existing delivery routes.
“It’s been very up and down over the years,” Jess says. “It must be like a gym membership. Why people sign up and don’t use their membership blows my mind.”
In addition to benefiting the small farms, customers appreciate the service. It resonates with those who cannot drive, people who need specific items unavailable in commercial grocers, and anyone with a buy-local mentality. The seasonal nature of products guarantees variety and offerings they can’t find anywhere else.
This story appeared in the Summer 2026 issue.
