Vermont

“Organic needs to start with the seed. It can’t just start at the grocery store,” says Andrea Tursini, CEO of High Mowing Organic Seeds. That was the idea when Tom Stearns founded the company in his backyard in 1996, using 28 organic seed varieties and hand-written brochures to market to organic growers. Now High Mowing has 53 employees and offers over 750 varieties of flower, vegetable, and cover crop seeds to home gardeners and commercial growers across the U.S. and Canada. They’ve grown 20 percent in five years and in 2024 served almost 10,000 customers. While the company has moved beyond Tom’s brochures–about 75 percent of their business now comes through the website–they’ve kept their commitment to sustainability and the power of organic seeds to create a healthier world. Relationships are a priority for Andrea: “We want seed breeders who trust us with their seeds, people who want to work here, and customers who love what we do.”

High Mowing has used Google Ads since 2008, and now runs AI-powered Performance Max campaigns. Fiona McMurtrie, the team’s marketing and e-commerce manager, notes that with AI setting the bids, she gets time back for other tasks–additionally, ad performance has improved. “The engagement rates in 2024 were highest for visitors from Google Ads, and traffic touched by Ads generated about 25 to 30 percent of overall web revenue,” she says. Fiona uses Google Analytics to monitor the website so she can respond quickly to unusual activity, and to spot trends by tracking page visits and searches. She then uses that data to promote particular items. “We get an immediate level of visibility. Analytics is a mine of information,” she says. High Mowing has been busy sharing their yield: They donate around 100,000 seed packets annually to schools, community gardens, and nonprofits, and last year donated close to four tons of produce to local food banks.

When Eric and Laura Sorkin moved to Vermont from New York in 2000, they didn’t expect to become one of the largest maple syrup producers in the state and one of the biggest employers in the town of Fairfax, with 65 people on staff. But people quickly fell in love with their brand, Runamok Maple, and its barrel-aged and infused syrups, like salted caramel and cinnamon + vanilla, as well as the sleek packaging and gift sets. In 2020, when more people were staying home due to the pandemic and cooking more breakfasts and pancakes, Runamok introduced sparkle syrup–a glittery take on traditional maple syrup that Eric describes as “pure frivolous joy.” Sales took off even more. “People were just giddy over it. Making maple syrup, it’s kind of like magic,” he says. Runamok continues to expand, with over 100,000 taps and new product ideas, like a line of honey they introduced in 2021.

Eric credits Google Trends and Google Ads with helping them build a “tech-forward” brand and reach beyond borders from their rural home base. Now, 40 percent of their e-commerce sales come from Google Ads. “They reach a lot of our wholesale customers, buyers, investors, customers–everybody. There’s a ripple effect from every Google Ad,” Eric says. “The capacity to reach a national audience, to tailor our ads, to get in front of exactly who we want to get in front of–it's miraculous.” The Runamok team also turns to search trends to refine product names and find new ideas, and uses Google Workspace to help them run operations across their production facility. “When the pandemic hit, we were already working with remote meeting tools, Google Docs, and Sheets,” Eric says. “Most people have an idea in their mind of what running a farm looks like. The reality is that there's a lot of office work as well. These tools help us collaborate in a way that wasn’t possible 15 or 20 years ago.”

Sheila Patinkin raises Wagyu, the Japanese cattle famous for their superior beef. It’s not the career she expected: she was a pediatrician in Chicago when her husband passed away suddenly. “I was grief-stricken, and it felt important to be closer to home, which was Vermont,” Sheila recalls. “I was looking for a niche business, and Wagyu is very artisanal, very hands-on.” So at age 52, Sheila purchased a farm near her hometown of Springfield, along with 20 embryos that would become her first full-blood Wagyu herd. Vermont Wagyu launched in 2011, selling sides of beef to top New York restaurants. Then the pandemic forced a U-turn: Vermont Wagyu still supplies Michelin-starred chefs, but 90 percent of sales are now direct-to-consumer, with about 3,500 ecommerce orders per year filled by Sheila and her family.

Vermont Wagyu already used Google Workspace to organize their livestock forecasts and finances. When 2020 brought a new urgency to marketing, they turned to Google Ads to reach new customers. Max Patinkin, Sheila’s son and an attorney by trade, handles the digital marketing for the business. He says about 25 percent of Vermont Wagyu’s sales come from Google Ads, and they generate up to 40 percent of the company’s growth. To understand what works best, they use Google Analytics. “Really drilling into how the website is performing, how campaigns are performing, is critical,” Max says. ”Each dollar returning to us allows us to support the families that work for us and the growth of the herd.” All four of Sheila’s children are involved in Vermont Wagyu, and as they partner with other local producers, they also shine a light on Vermont’s artisanal traditions. “Being a multi-generational farm is something that we really take to heart,” Max says. “And it's nice to see that evolution and support an agrarian business in a great state.”

As a hands-on home baker, Sarah Kaeck was looking for a sustainable way to keep goods like bread fresh. She came across the idea of waxing fabric with beeswax, resin, and plant oil and started experimenting in the kitchen. Looking to make it easy for others to cut down on food waste and single-use plastic, she started sharing her reusable wraps with friends and family and sold them at the local farmers market before launching Bee's Wrap, a compostable and food-safe alternative to plastic wrap, in 2012. The company soon went from an idea in Sarah’s head to a certified B Corp, serving roughly a quarter million global consumers a year and donating a portion of proceeds to environmental organizations. “We are committed to covering the world in pollinators, not plastic,” says Julian Fenn, Bee’s Wrap’s director of online marketing. “One kitchen at a time, we’re giving people a way to make a small swap so they can be part of this journey toward a plastic-free future.”

Before 2020, the majority of Bee’s Wrap sales came from brick-and-mortar stores, which were more greatly impacted by the pandemic. That’s when they turned to Google Ads to help boost online sales. “If we're not bidding on our search terms, somebody else is, so those ad placements are incredibly valuable,” says Julian. “About 25 percent of revenue now comes through Google Ads.” To learn more about its users’ needs, Bee’s Wrap uses Google Analytics. “We have better ad performance and better conversion rates than we used to because we can understand our customer a little better through Google Analytics.” Bee’s Wrap is also finding success with major retailers. “We’re getting out from a niche environment to a mass environment, and the more people we can reach, the bigger impact we can make,” says Julian. “We’re really excited to be able to help people make these small changes that make a huge difference.”