In an age when sustainable farms are struggling to maintain relevance, Grace Lam has cracked the code to the modern-day customer. Lam founded Fivefork Farms a decade ago after quitting her job as a Wall Street international equities sales trader, and, with the help of her four siblings, has cultivated one of the most popular flower farms in the region.
The 38-acre farm offers a community-supported agriculture program where customers can purchase a share of the season’s flowers, which are delivered over a set period. The farm has distributed more than 1,000 CSA shares. Fivefork also provides flowers at local farmers’ markets, retail stores, florists, and designers.
Perhaps most impressively, Fivefork has a following of more than 64,500 on Instagram, eight times the population of the entire town of Upton. The farm was featured in the final print issue of Martha Stewart Living. In 2021, Fivefork raised more than $10,000 for refugee farmers at Flats Mentor Farm in Lancaster, who endured loss of crops due to flooding. That came on top of Lam’s annual Father’s Day fundraiser, where last year’s proceeds went to Father Bill’s & Mainspring in Brockton, in memory of Father Bill McCarthy, who was a close friend of Lam’s dad.
Fivefork is not only a model for the agriculture industry in Central Massachusetts, but its successful online presence has made it an influential player in the region’s business economy as a whole.
What sets the Central Mass. business community apart from the rest of the world? Every small business owner I’ve met cares so deeply about their community here.
Twice as good: I’m an identical twin!
