Friday, September 9, 2011

Confessions of a farmers market vendor

Well it has been a hectic and busy second half of summer as i decided to take the plunge into the "interesting" world of farm markets by entering into a local market. I thought long and hard about it and decided against it but i had the luck of finding a reliable full time employee who has enabled me to be on the ball with regards to keeping the berries fully picked and for me to actually have the time to be off the farm for a day every week. I have now done three weeks at the market i am very pleased with how it has gone so far and i feel a strong sense of vindication in my farming abilities now that i am directly interacting with the customers instead of just wholesaling. I have been very pleased with both the price that i have been able to get for my produce and the feedback i have been getting from my small but growing customer base it is nice to now have a couple regular customers. I am glad that the berries have been so well received owing to the fact that i am charging a higher price than other vendors selling berries and that my key selling point of them being chemical free and local has been a bit with my customers. I hope that the rest of market season will go well and that i can gain enough experience and insight to be able to start next year at two markets and then enter into another couple as the season goes on as i would like to increase my exposure within the market scene locally. The things that i have learned from my first few market days is that being able to tell the customer "honestly" that you grew the majority of the produce at your stall instead of just growing a little and then reselling non local produce without properly informing the customer of its origin is a key selling point. I have quickly realized how much many vendors are really nothing more than resellers without really advertising that fact to their customers and that bothers me a lot but i digress. Well i should cut this post off before it becomes a full fledged rant i hope you all have a nice last few weeks of summer i will try to post again soon.

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