Libby & Son U Picks — Attraction in Limerick

I wanted to love Libby and Sons. Instead, I felt sad. Pros: (1) lots of apple trees and blueberries into October (2) pizza

Cons: (1) It more about $$ than being of service. Some staff are unfriendly. Rigid rules made us feel unwelcome.

(2) They allow thousands of lbs of blueberries and apples to go to waste and rot in the ground and over charge customers claiming it’s because customers “consume” 40% of their crop. I don’t think that’s true.

(3) Their prices are twice market price because they are funding the music, carts, and food waste.

I’ll explain. We have extensive experience both blueberry and apple picking. Libby’s charges $12/quart (1.5 lbs) of blueberries that you must pre-pay. And every person “allowed” in the blueberry patch must pick a quart. The woman in the front wouldn’t even let us see what the blueberries looked like! Plus, they have none in front to even see what you are picking. They don’t sell fruit in their store!

Their apples were $25 for a small bag (that we’d pay $14 during the week or at any time at Hansel’s). “$25 is our weekend price.” We has just driven an hour to get there.

Their reasoning is “we lose 40% to consumption.” I will say I don’t think that’s true. They lose 40% to waste on the ground because the owner has decided to not have his people pick any fruit at all. “We are a you pick only.”

Most orchards use the dropped apples to make apple cider. The cider sold at Libby’s isn’t even from their own apples - which lay rotting on the ground. Why not pick up the dropped and donate them? Use them. Feed people? According to one staff member, “I was told it acts as good fertilizer but I feel bad about seeing them there.”

The ground beneath the blueberry bushes has hundreds if not thousands of wasted blueberries piled on the ground. It’s like a carpet of fallen blueberries. A sea of blue beneath the bushes. Why? Most pick your own blueberry fields have their employees pick ripe blueberries before they fall and sell them up front so they aren’t wasted. Not Libby’s. If customers don’t pick them, the berries fall on the ground and rot. This is tens of thousands of dollars wasted. I’ve never seen anything like this. And, the price per lbs is about $9 per lb. At Whole Foods, you can buy blueberries at half that price. Everywhere else to pick your own it’s $4-5 per lb. But they don’t allow half their crop to drop and rot. (See photo) We’ve been to places where they weigh after you pick. We’ve been to places that you can share a plastic container and you pay for it full $18 per container whether it was full or not. But three people could work to fill it and it wasn’t about 4-5 lbs or $4-5 per lb.

Now, Libby’s and Sons can run their business how they want but we won’t go back. We want to pick blueberries and apples at a reasonable rate. We don’t need bells and whistles, live music that are all paid for by inflated prices.

Oh, while they waste half their crop, they make you feel like you are going to steal as well. “The great Maine blueberry heist.” We asked for plastic bags to carry our blueberry quarts back in so they wouldn’t spill. We were denied “that’s the rules. I’m just a worker bee.” It was because they thought we use the plastic bag to take extra blueberries beyond the quart we pre-paid for. Most blueberry places will have a wooden box you can use to carry blueberries in case something spills. Not Libby’s. An orange plastic cafeteria tray. Useless.

We almost walked out. That’s never been our experience in decades of picking fruit and enjoying it. We have loved everyplace we’ve picked except here. In my opinion, it’s about over charging customers, treating them like potential thieves and wasting food.

The whole “you are here for the experience” thing is an excuse, in my opinion, for greed and a poorly run business. It felt like a factory. We went to Smiling Hills after with reasonable prices and friendly services. Libby and sons felt like a rip off. Supposedly it’s a new owner. I believe it’s going to drive...

Yesterday, Sunday the 15th started out to be another perfect picking day at your orchard. Unfortunately, it did not end well.

By way of background, my wife and I have been enthusiastic supporters of your business for the past several years having patronized Libby and Son’s multiple times each season. I would estimate that our expenditures this season alone approximate $250.00. Until yesterday all of our experiences have been positive. With one notable exception, your staff does an excellent job of providing friendly customer service. Regrettably, the incident yesterday has destroyed the goodwill that we have enjoyed for years.

The incident: As we were checking out with our peaches, raspberries and blueberries we became aware that despite our plan in the morning to bring enough cash, it looked like we would be a couple of dollars short. The bill came to $73.87 which included 2 apples that we were going to enjoy on the way home. We asked the young lady at the register to remove the apples prior to completing the transaction because that was approximately the amount that we were short. She indicated that she could not do that and pointed us toward the ATM. I suggested to her that spending $5 on bank fees for less than $2.00 worth of apples wasn’t a reasonable solution. At that point she asked the girl beside her what she should do. The reply was “Just like a restaurant, you pay for whatever you order”. It’s worth pointing out that unlike a restaurant where the cost is known ahead of time, the total cost of buying self picked fruit at Libby and Son’s is unknown until checkout. I would suggest to your staff that the restaurant analogy is not a verry good one. I might add that the demeanor of both girls was anything but friendly. My wife said she would run to the car to see if she could find some more money. She did come back with enough for the two apples and we left. In hindsight, we should have eaten the apples in your orchard like may of your customers or simply left everything on the counter and walked out. Lastly, I’d like to add that had the we come up sigificantly short, I would have been happy to uses the ATM.

So for the price of two apples, Libby and Son’s has lost a good customer and many positive referrals. I get that the retail business is difficult and rules are important but good judgement and common sense are also important. We’re talking about two apples here. Had the two girls at the register used either one of those virtues, perhaps the outcome would have been different. By the way, the checkout counter at the time was not busy and nobody was behind us.

Like it or not, these two young girls at the register represent your company so rather than “throw them under the bus”, perhaps management should re-think the way issues like this can be handled in the future.

Reference: Receipt printed at 10:02 on 9/15/2019 blueberries $23.96 Peaches $39.98 Rasberries $8.47 Apples $1.46 Total ...

Libby & Son Orchard is not somewhere I would recommend to anyone I know. There are an abundance of orchards in the same area who charge far less for more. Same experience or better, same fruit or better, same service or better. It is possible to get a better experience from many orchards in the area for much less cost.

Instead of acting as if every customer who points this out to you is delusional, maybe take that time to self reflect on how you're operating your business. The continued regurgitation of the same excuses such as overhead costs, paying for the experience, having people carted back and forth to the parking lot, not charging admission etc does not do much for you. All of the orchards in the area share these same burdens, yet manage to be exponentially cheaper. We went 10 minutes down the road, grabbed a bag and all picked apples with no limit on how many of us could go into the orchard, got a tractor ride, and ate apples to our heart's content for significantly less and with much less hassle. They all seem to be getting by just fine at a fraction of the cost. Same product. Same experience. Might I suggest a better experience because they were more pleasant to deal with and much more realistic.

Not a good look to clearly be either trying to capitalize on people who don't know any better or to be inept at running your business efficiently and passing that on to the customers who then get treated like they are delusional for complaining about prices.

I will be actively promoting other orchards in the area to anyone I hear of looking for pick your own fruit...