21) Promoting in retail outlets. Work closely with retail produce buyers to promote new or exotic items. Supply stores with recipe pads and encourage produce managers to set up sample tables. Go all out on your packaging. Customers like to be romanced, so tell a story on your packages; give a little background of your farm or the history of the product. Provide cooking and storage tips. Invite the consumer to write to you with their comments on the product or suggestions for recipes.

22) Premium prices. The key to commanding premium prices in selling to retail stores is to offer them unique, smaller-volume items in a nonstandard "premium pack." You might offer a retail pack of potatoes, for example, with several different sizes. The pack appeals to retailers with very limited shelf space, as well as to customers who often prefer several different sizes of potatoes for different uses. Or you might offer a 10-pound package of near-perfect, uniformly sized tomatoes in a cell-pack that gives each tomato separate protection. The lid folds back so the box can be used as a display box.

23) Selling produce to restaurants. Since affordable labor is a big problem faced by chefs, they are glad to buy food products in a semi-prepared form, such as pre-sliced vegetables, pre-peeled potatoes, pre-washed greens, or tomatoes and potatoes sorted according to size. The less time spent preparing produce in the kitchen the better. Chefs use big tomatoes, for example, for slicing, and little tomatoes for salads.

24) Produce packaging. Attractive packaging helps market products in high-end wholesale marketing. It may pay to spend a little extra to have your farm logo or a striking color label put on your shipping boxes. If the product looks as good as the packaging, the terminal wholesale buyers will buy! Some packaging boxes are so attractive they can double as retail display cases. You might also include extra labels for the retailers to use as in-store displays above their produce. Make sure that your pricing reflects the added cost.

25) High-value products. Another key to marketing high-value products wholesale is the personal touch. Educate buyers and consumers about your product in order to make them willing to pay a premium! If you are selling to a distant specialty broker, for example, give them product information to educate their sales staff, and flyers and point-of-purchase materials for their salespeople to take to the chefs and produce managers.

26) Specialty distributors, who purchase your product for distribution to high-end restaurants, natural food stores or gourmet shops, can be one of your best buyers for high-end crops. For some resourceful growers, selling through specialty brokers or distributors leaves them free to spend most of their time in production, while getting top dollar for their crops. The high-end specialty trade is a highly crowded, competitive market that demands the highest quality product and packaging. The supply-demand issue is very critical. You can't just grow anything and expect to get high-end prices. Specialty produce changes from year to year depending on what's fashionable.

27) Farmer Co-ops. In union there is strength; yet farmer cooperatives traditionally have had a high failure rate. One reason may be that larger cooperatives with a packing operation often develop bigger, more centralized operations, with a full-time manager and other labor costs, plus expensive machinery. Ensuing debts often lead to the co-ops' failure. Marketing associations, on the other hand, exist to help market and promote growers' products, with no centralized site for packing. As well as promoting farm products by type of product, marketing associations can also promote farm products by growing region.

28) "Value-Added" (processed) products. Dry it, pie it, or put it in cider--"value-added" (processed) products make sense. Fruit that may be worth cents-per-pound as a fresh market product, for example, may be worth dollars-per-pound as processed jam! Value-added products create additional products for you to sell, enable you to market less-than-perfect produce as processed products, provide a source for year-round sales, and generate off-season work. Start small and build a solid local base before attempting to sell to larger or more distant markets. Test market your product at farmers markets. Supply local gift shops and small independent retail stores with specialty items that they can't get through normal distributors. First get "visibility"--testimonials, publicity in local papers, proof-of-sales, etc.--this will entice large distributors and supermarkets to carry your product.

29) Sampling. According to Guerrilla Marketing author Jay Levinson, sampling is the most effective marketing method available. Hand a customer a small paper cup of cider, and they'll probably want to purchase a gallon--that's inexpensive promotion! Product sampling is especially important for introducing new products, or new varieties of a product. Whether it's with toothpick samples at your farmers market stall or roadside market, by doing "demos" at a retail store, or bringing along your cutting board when you visit produce managers or restaurant chefs, let the customers taste your great product. Once they try, they'll buy!

30) Customer service. Whether you are marketing your products through wholesalers, retailers, or directly to consumers, your success depends on personal, "whatever-it-takes" customer service. This is something customers can't find at the supermarkets or wholesale markets! If you have a roadside stand, for example, go the extra mile and provide information on types and varieties of produce and recipes for customer use, a picnic area, a call-in ordering service, and acceptance of credit cards. Washed produce is welcomed by travelers or picnickers; you also might provide a produce-washing facility for customer use.

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