I’ve been thinking about selling baked goods at the local Farmer’s Market, but it seems like it might be cost-prohibitive to do so (getting all the licenses, certified kitchen, etc)
I know it differs wildly from state to state, but I was just curious to read about other folks’ experiences selling at a Farmer’s Market.
I have never sold at a Farmer’s Market, but seeing as I purchase most of our food at one, I will give my biggest observation on the comings and goings of booths, farmers, etc.
Booths never get many customers for the first season/year, because people go back to the same sellers (I know the people in my lines nearly as well as I know the proprietor.) as they will always round down, give my kids an extra pluot, or ask them why they didn’t want their usual cherries, etc. The personal service, interactions, and helping of small businesses/farms/locavore mentality is a big reason why I go to the same people.
But I expect a certain level of quality as most prices are above the Safeway. So I don’t just go to a brand new booth, I let others do the voting with either the line length or teh longevity (they come back teh next year). And it seems like this is the way that most farmer’s market regulars do it.
So (assuming pies simply for explanation sake):
be patient, you’ve got to put in the time to develop a customer base (1 year of mediocre to poor sales can result in a flourishing business the second year)
a. Give free samples, if someone didn’t like something give them a different one for free
i. Customer loyalty is strong as word of mouth is a big deal
Talk with your customers, How are they? “I have a an apple pie that would be great followup to your sausage and corn you have there.” What do/did they (not) like? How could you change what you made? “I’d be willing to make 5 pies for you next week with extra cinnamon. One to eat fresh and freeze the other 4.”
Don’t bake everything under the sun. Make yourself unique. Do something really well and expand that concept. Most farmer’s market people aren’t looking for fancy pie, just tasty fresh pie. (I recently watched a soup booth morph from being a fresh hot soup while you’re here to a cold soup to heat at home to an already frozen soup that you can heat up in two weeks place. They started doing a great deal more business- they still had hot samples. but they really took off with the addition of spicy “pour-ins” where after heating the soup you dump in some red-pepper based liquid that really brought the soup to life. Then they joined forces with a local bakery and sell “homemade” saltines to go with the soup. They market it as “Fresh soup for dinner straight from your freezer in 10 minutes 2 weeks from now.” Or something like that. Everything about it screams, new entrepreneuer who has good soups, but the two women doing it seem to be raking in the money now. But it took them 2+ years to find their niche, finalize their product, and get their customer base built.)
Go for it! A lot of people have had a tremendous amount of success starting this way, and you can too!
I sell at a farmers market just about every weekend.
The following information is based on what I know about the prepared food vendors in Austin only.
Other than that, **Disheavel ** is absolutely correct.
Be prepared to spend a lot of time just chatting in the beginning.
Create an eye catching display.
Ask you customers what they want and then find a way to give it to them.
Start an email data basis and use it to communicate with your customers.
Find a way to distinguish yourself from the other bakers-maybe gluten free bread or vegan brownies as well as regular baked goods…
Sell lots of small things (cupcakes, cookies) that don’t require a major financial outlay from the customer.
We’ve being doing our market for 4 years now and usually I love it.
It’s a lot of work and we could probably go to only restaurant sales at this stage of the game but we make more at the market and cash is king.