Fogline Farm
Meet the Farmer
Fogline Farm
Caleb Barron
Acreage: 40
Location: San Mateo Coast
Established in: 2013
What they sell: Poultry, eggs, pork, beef
Where they sell: Downtown Santa Cruz Farmers Market, Wed 1pm-6pm
Monterey (Cabrillo College) Farmers Market, Sat 9am-12pm
Monterey (Del Monte) Farmers Market, Fri 8am-12pm
Santa Cruz (Live Oak) Farmers Market, Sun 9am-1pm
Santa Cruz (Westside) Farmers Market, Sat 9am-1pm
Downtown Palo Alto Farmers Market, Sat 8am-12pm
Home Delivery to Santa Cruz and San Mateo Coast
Ocean2Table
Good Egg
A KTA client since 2013, Caleb over at Fogline Farm on the Año Nuevo Peninsula has cultivated a loyal customer base for his organic, pasture-raised chickens.
Community lies at the heart of Fogline’s success and growth, and is something Caleb actively nurtures among both the team at Fogline and other small farms and ranches on the San Mateo Coast. Antonio Reyes, an employee at Fogline, has been key to helping Caleb navigate recent hardships. In 2021, Antonio started his own operation, Antonio and Sons Farm, subleasing land from Caleb and joining KTA's advising program as a member of our 2022 client cohort. In recent years, Caleb has also deepened his relationship with KTA client Dede Boies of Root Down Farm as both navigated livestock ownership together. Now, Caleb supports with the harvest and delivery of Dede's chickens.
In 2020, when the pandemic hit, Fogline Farm found itself shaken; as restaurants closed and market channels shrank, Caleb assumed it was the end of his business.
However, the Fogline family pulled through owing to direct-to-consumer market streams like online marketplaces, grocery delivery services, and farmers markets. The foundational support Fogline’s customer community provided ultimately inspired Caleb to grow his operation; with newfound confidence to scale up his business. By April of the next year, he had succeeded in doubling Fogline’s production on the same acreage with a new employee and upgraded infrastructure.
Advising Snapshot: 2022
When they began working with KTA: 2013
Advising Focus: Big picture visioning; business partnership
Over the eight years that KTA has been working with Fogline, we’ve helped Caleb by serving as a business and thought partner addressing a number of challenges that his business has faced, and creating a long-term vision for the farm. In recent years, James Nakahara, his Farm Business Advisor, and Caleb have shifted their focus towards large-scale regional opportunities that would stabilize processing and distribution for Fogline and other ranchers along the San Mateo Coast. Through collaboration with James and other stakeholders, Caleb hopes to establish and improve infrastructure that would support value-added production and animal processing while mitigating high transport costs and fees. Associated with this work, they’re also exploring the creation of a local operations hub for the coast.
