...or trade shows for my woodworking, what sells today, is old news tomorrow, with no way to know what will be popular tomorrow. It's a roll of the dice, but woodworking products are not perishable, so you can hold on to them and hopefully sell at a later date, not so much with cucumbers!
Ha! So true. One year I raised about a thousand pounds of cucumbers and sold about ten pounds. I fed them to the horses and chickens until even they wouldn't eat them anymore, gave them away to the neighbors, made pickles, and finally dumped hundreds of pounds over the hill by the wheel barrow load.
That's not what I expected to hear, The farmers markets around here are very busy and the same farmers keep coming back. Could you give some reasons why?
Yea I know, one of the reason I'm thinking it all through and asking questions and looking for advice.
Were you wholesaling? I couldn't imagining needing a semi! But then again I'm not even a nub yet.
One thing that may have changed in 20 years is that farmer's markets may have become more common and more popular -- or it might be different in Vermont.
Two most common remarks heard at the Farmer's Market: "That's a good tomato!" (samples! samples sell) "Heck, this stuff isn't that much cheaper than the grocery store!"
Let's see if I can kind of sum this up without getting into too much crazy detail.
We couldn't sell right off the farm because we weren't home enough and we were at the end of a long dead end road. You might be able to do that...
We never got around to trying CSA largely because we felt that we couldn't produce consistently enough to keep people happy. We discussed maybe getting a group of similar growers together to support a CSA. Also, most customers we talked to had never heard of the idea.
Farmer's markets were hard to get into and the customers were very price conscious. They required very large commitments of time (be there on time, all the time, every Saturday and Sunday, don't forget be up at 4am to pick and pack and drive and setup) Once we had divided our sales by our hours we were making sub-minimum wage for the time, and that didn't count anything to cover costs or time spent growing the stuff in the first place. (But it was fun and probably a good marketing exercise.)
Yes, we did sell wholesale on a small scale, and that was our best strategy. Unfortunately the big guys won't buy from you and the small ones tend to order inconsistently or go out of business and, of course, they would really prefer to have a year round source of consistent product. I don't blame them, but that's a tough trick in a temperate climate.
I guess this is the heart of it:
Your local conditions will dictate what you can do. I'd look for local advice and experiences. I'm pretty sure Vermont has some great organizations, something similar to OEFFA (Ohio Ecological Food and Farming Association)
I think you're on the right track with a stand on your place and the CSA.
Balancing production and sales is a tricky game.
Try running some business cases. Even basic ones, say you want to make $10,000, how much can you sell, say tomatoes (our biggest crop) for, $2 a pound? $3. OK, So how much of that is net? (That part will be hard to figure out until you do it.) I'll make a wild guess and say 50 cents. OK, you need to sell twenty thousand pounds of tomatoes. To sell 20,000 pounds you'll need to grow more than that, since there are losses of various kinds so add another ten percent or so. (coincidentally our best year was right around that, 11 tons). Then start asking questions:
"how many plants of what varieties to grow that much?"
"If there are twenty pounds to a box, that's a thousand boxes, and my truck will hold how many boxes at a time?" (Mine held about 24 if I remember right.)
"How many does it need to hold since I'm spreading the harvest and sale over several weeks or even a month or two?"
"Where am I going to get boxes? And how much do they cost?"
"What will I do with the spoliage?"
"How many pounds does the typical customer buy? How many customers am I going to need then?"
and so on...
An idea I never got around to following through on; ask a farmer at one of the markets how many pounds of cucumbers or tomatoes or whatever they bring to the market each day. Or, sit and watch a prosperous looking vendor for an hour or two and make a note of how much of what they sell, how many pounds the average customer buys, etc.
I would be very interested in any other advice, if you would like to email I would be glad to hear from you.
I don't know if my ruminations amount to advice, but I'm happy to share my opinions and experience. Your mileage may vary. I'm not sure whether anyone else is interested or what the protocol / standard is in this neighborhood for "time to take it to email". Probably someone will tell me to desist.
-- John