Selling Produce

The Hot 50 Small Farm Marketing Tips

 1) Sell before you sow! Don't plant one seed until you know who your customers will be. Match your sales volume to the market--plan ahead and anticipate what you can sell to your outlets. There's nothing worse than producing a crop, only to find out that you can't sell it. Market analysis not only helps determine if your prospective enterprise can be profitable, but also determines how you will promote and market your product.

2) Match the scope of the project to the risk you can handle. Start small, and test your ability to grow and market new products before you scale up. In addition to protecting yourself so that you don't get knocked out if your experiment fails, starting small also helps assure you'll produce a quality product. Set aside a certain percentage of your acreage or gross income each year to experiment with new products. Focus initially on producing a few selected specialties, and establish a reputation for quality specialty products.

3) Looking for ideas for possible things to grow? Check with current or potential buyers such as specialty distributors, restaurant chefs, customers at your own U-Pick or farm market, retail produce managers, seed company catalogs, cooperative extension office publications, and books such as Craig Wallin's Backyard Cash Crops and Rosalind Creasey's Cooking From The Garden. Play around in the kitchen experimenting with different ways in which your products can be used. Don't get swept away by every new possibility that comes along, however. Take your list of new ideas and evaluate how each alternative matches your skills, preferences and resources.

4) Diversify your enterprises and your markets. Don't put all your eggs in one basket. If weather, pests, or a collapsed market wipe out one crop, you've got others to rely on. Another advantage of diversity is that once you've established connections with buyers, increasing the variety you offer them is a good way to increase the overall volume they will accept from you. But there's a tradeoff: you may have to learn new production technologies, buy new equipment and develop new markets. Diversifying markets can be simpler and more lucrative than diversifying production. Adding a farmers market to your marketing mix, going organic, or developing "value-added" products such as soybean snacks are examples of diversifying your markets without changing what you produce.

5) Specialty crops. Raise high-value crops, plants that the big wholesalers have overlooked because they require lots of handling or special care. Herbs require much specialized, hands-on care, for instance, as do berries or haricovert beans. Remember, however, that specialty produce doesn't have to be exotic. It just has to taste special! Regular commercial varieties such as peaches or raspberries are also specialty crops if they are allowed to fully ripen on the tree or vine, specialty-packed and moved fast!

6) The secret of high-value, specialty marketing is to know ahead of time what your market is, and where it's going. Be prepared to change with the seasons. A few years ago, baby vegetables were hot; now growers can almost give them away. Too many growers just go by what sold well last year-but most specialty buyers, such as chefs, are constantly looking for something new. In case your high-end markets don't take all your premium produce, develop secondary outlets for your specialty crops such as canning, processing or selling at lower-end markets.

7) Translate trends into profits. Look for niche markets through such trends as health and nutrition, smaller packages, more diverse and higher quality foods, quality and convenience, ethnic foods, foods for weight-conscious consumers as well as consumers concerned about food-safety. Some other trends to be aware of include the demand for fresh, in-season, local produce as well as organic produce and cut flowers.

8) Grow and market for quality. Some customers will pay the price you name for quality they can't get elsewhere. Freshness: keep your products on the vine or tree as long as possible, then get them to the consumer as soon as possible after harvest. Variety: comb through specialty seed catalogs, searching for varieties that boast of excellence in flavor. Many specialty farmers grow their products chemical-free, using a program of natural, enriched soil practices. Don't jeopardize your top-paying markets by mixing your premium products with lesser-grade products--develop secondary outlets for your number two's and three's. Not everything you produce is marketable to a high-end market such as a restaurant. Plant 10 percent more than what you plan to market.

9) Aim for a year-round supply. Extend your harvest by successively planting different varieties with different harvest dates. Steady production stretched over a long growing season provides regular work for the labor crew, evens out the cash flow, helps capture early- and late-season prices, and provides a consistency of supply for the buyers.

10) Intensify. With few acres, you need to use intensive production techniques. Read John Jeavons' book How To Grow More Vegetables, the bible on intensive production techniques.

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