A very large portion of my garden has been taken over by peppermint plants. I occasionally will eat a leaf or two, but I was wondering if it would be worth it to harvest and sell it. The grocery store sells tiny little packets of peppermint for $3.50. If I could get that price for all this, I would be rich!
This brings back memories of my mother telling me about growing up on a farm where the main crop was peppermint. She used to earn money taking bugs off the plants.
Could you sell it at a farmer’s market?
Sorry Boff. I doubt those little packets of mint in the store even sell regularly. Are you interested in a bushel of spearmint or lemon balm? How about some rosemary? It’s taking over the house!
I’ve used mint to make pesto. Uses up a lot and doesn’t even have a minty taste.
There are many different kinds of mint, including those known as “peppermint”. Some are considered high quality, others are more weedy and not as good-tasting.
I kind of doubt there’s significant income to be made from being a single-crop mint farmer, trucking it around to restaurants and grocery stores. As a small part of a produce business, OK.
I have a patch of “Kentucky Colonel” spearmint by the back door. I keep planning to make a mint julep for Derby Day but never get around to it. Maybe I should sell it and realize my dreams of fabulous wealth.
You’d make a mint.
Well, you’re looking at about 12 cents a clamshell if you buy by the case, about 50 cents to a dollar for each label (you want waterproof labels, of course) and another 8 cents or so for a round clear label to seal the package with. So you’re $1.70 in supplies for each unit before you start to figure in labor of harvesting, sorting out the limp brown leaves (and bugs), trimming, weighing (you do have a digital scale, yes? If not, that’s another $50 for a good one) and packaging. Then you have to figure out who to sell them to and how to transport them there, so figure a few hours a day for a couple of months to find retailers, and then a few hours a week to drive around and restock them. And gas money, of course.
And remember that you have to be safety and license compliant to sell food out of your kitchen. That means state licenses in many states, upgrades to your refrigeration and storage facilities, thermometers, cleaning solutions, liability insurance…
I’m not going to say you couldn’t do it. Obviously, you can. The main fresh herb company in my area was started by a woman I went to herb school with. She did it, although of course she had a dozen herbs to start with, not just one, and she’s supporting herself and employees with it now. But it’s a business, and with any business, it requires some level of investment and ongoing costs to keep going.
If you just want to do it for shits and giggles when it’s convenient for you, skip the clamshells and labels and get a table at your local farmer’s market and bring bunches in cute little rustic twine ties. But it better be tasty tasty mint, because most people who shop at farmer’s markets know that mint is easier to grow than to stop growing, and even those of us with only container gardening can grow mint if we want mint.
Really? No minty taste? How does that work? I’ve got a ton of mint, and I love pesto. I don’t particularly care for mint, I probably use a few dozen leaves every year.
I throw out this random point for those who might not know it.
Do NOT plant mint. Its a weed that gives kudzu a run for its money.
You want some mint? Keep it in some pots here and there.
You have been warned.
Not meaning to hijack…but there is an actual herb school?
Color my ignorance fought. At least for today.
There are hundreds, actually. AHG Suggested Education Guidelines | American Herbalists Guild
NM, just saw Cabin Fever’s post asking the same thing.
For invasive plants I like to cut the bottom from a five gallon bucket and bury the bottomless bucket where you want your “patch”.
My suggestion would be to bag it all up into and take it to a small mom and pop store and see if they’ll take it. You’ll probably find someone that will, but don’t be insulted when they give you about a dollar a pound and then make their own little packages that they sell for 99¢.
All that stuff that WhyNot said is what the store has to do AND they have to think about the couple of packages that they’re going to throw out in a few days. So you bring them a pound or so. They make, say, 10 packages, sell 5, toss 10, figure in supplies, COGS, labor etc and they’ve profited, what, $3. In the mean time, the person that sold it to us gets annoyed when they stop in a few days later with another bag and sees that we paid them $1.00 and we’re marking it up 10x. So they try to sell us this bag for $5.
With herbs, I can’t imagine it’s worth your time to try to sell them. If you have a good relationship with any small produce stores, maybe just give it too them…unless you have, like, pounds of the stuff.
Also, are you sure it’s peppermint and not mint? If it’s mint, bring it around a few days before the Kentucky Derby. Hit up the local bars too. Bartenders that have never even heard of mint are suddenly scrambling for mint, and lots of it, that day.