How to sell radishes at farmers market
Selling at a Farmers Market - Tips & Tricks
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[Music]
hey there
i'm at rough draft farmstead with farmer
jesse and we're gonna be going to the
farmer's market today and i
never get to show you that because i
don't go to farmers markets but i'm
gonna tag along with jesse and he's
gonna give a bunch of tips
and show you what that's like wait
you're coming with me
wait that's the plan right
[Music]
all right so we're all packed up in the
minivan here what's the first order of
business
uh we gotta get bagels i don't think you
can do a farmer's market without bagels
in your stomach
all right jess we got our babies you're
gonna eat what
jesse got he's got a few bagels huh i
said you gotta fill your stomach with
bagels all right is that going to hold
you over
is that going to hold you over i hope so
i mean it's not that far
i can come get more
this is our basic market setup the thing
that we have to do at our market is we
have these
specific signs that everybody has to
have it says the origin
of where it came from there you know we
do have people who resell it our market
so everybody has to say where their
stuff came from uh
the price and you know that we're
certified usda organic
we sell everything in one for three or
two for five that's everything that we
grow pretty much
sometimes in the fall or sometimes
through tomato season we'll change that
up a little bit but
for the most part everything is one for
three and two for five and then
the um and that just makes our pricing
really easy it's a very simple
pricing structure it's easy for the
customer it's easy for me when i'm busy
and tired at the end of the week
uh to just keep up with that math and we
can move customers in and out really
quickly
um and it's also good because we this is
uh you know we uh we price everything at
250 but if somebody wants just one item
they pay three dollars for it so it's a
you know makes a little bit more money
for that
particular item um yeah and our setup is
very specific
we have everything in this l over here
because the sunlight comes in this way
and since we sell
the majority of greens we definitely
want to keep the greens out of the
sunlight some of it's in bags
some of it's loose but either way we
don't want it wilting and you know
plastic bags are essentially like little
greenhouses so when it comes to mixed
greens you want to keep that like out of
the sun as mu
absolutely as much as possible um and
then throughout the day
we're misting we're moving stuff in and
out of coolers we're keeping it looking
fresh
this table will look fresh all the way
until
the end of the day and that's because we
are constantly
moving things around and making sure
everything is stacked and fresh
also this setup this is like old siding
that we
from our old cabin um and at some of its
cedar some of its sassafras but we just
made these two little
uh you know display cases for the
vegetables and it's been it's worked out
really well because it keeps everything
segregated really easily
and then with this like if you want to
keep things looking fresh all day
instead of having just a big pile of
something
we can do a partial pile here and then a
partial pile here
so it looks like one massive pile but
that way you're not having to put as
much produce
out because here in kentucky i mean some
of the days can be 95 degrees all day
long from
start to finish um and we also use this
it's not the best solution but it's
actually been one that's worked really
well is this
sticky tack instead of using tax or
thumb tax
that keeps these down pretty well for
the wind
and you know in terms of signage like we
have these which we have to have and
then we also have our
pricing signage and several places where
it says certified organic
including our banner um and then we also
have this
we're proud of the way we grow ask us
about our farm values and people do ask
us about those
um you know we just talk about no
tillage we talk about being a family
farm
uh we definitely want to know want
people to know that we grow the food
and that we pick it and that we care a
lot about the soil and the ecology and
the birds and all the things that go
into it
um do you think that being certified
organic makes a difference for you at
the market 100
if i was selling if i was selling to
restaurants or i was selling wholesale i
may not be as worried about being
certified organic at the farmer's market
is an
absolute instant uh uh customer base
like if you you know a lot of what you
see at farmer's markets is a lot of
great growers who are not certified
and that's that's good you know there
should be people who are growing like
that and a lot of people don't agree
with certification
um but for us it's it is an instant
especially when we first moved into this
market four or five years ago five years
ago
um we needed something to get an instant
customer base and being certified
organic we got our farm certified really
quickly
and that you know made all the
difference so and we get thanked every
day for
being certified like people like that
they can trust that they know we
you know do all the things that are
required to certified organic farming
okay so we just gotta wait a little
while and then we'll put out the produce
right before the market opens yeah yeah
we wait all the way up until uh
you know as we keep it in the coolers
absolutely as long as possible all right
can we
eat those bagels now now we're gonna eat
bagels
[Music]
all right jesse so mark has been for a
little while now and just when you have
a little bit of a break you're just
gonna
constantly restock constantly restock
refresh spray down
make sure everything looks good and say
hi to everybody morning
i say all the time that saying hi to
people
probably brings in ten thousand dollars
a year just they'll stop
they'll come back they'd feel invited
into your booth just by saying hello
it's like the most important thing not
standing and saying hi
or good morning all right so this is
like roughly the
you know we're pretty much down to the
last hour of the market we're just
consolidating everything that hasn't
sold yet
um which is just a handful of beets
carrots and lettuce and some green
onions
right so going from two tables down to
one now yeah you just want to
if you go down to one it makes it look
so much more
robust like if you have everything
spread out and you only have a few
things left it doesn't make it
it doesn't have the same effect it
doesn't have the same bountiful effect
like one of the main tenets of
market gardening is keep piling high and
kiss
goodbye is the best explanation for it
but if you don't
if you can't make it look that way then
it won't sell as well if it doesn't look
bounty yes it won't sell
right so and then just as the market's
going on you're constantly restocking
consolidating
making it look full yep yeah making
stuff look fresh full
never anytime you have anything wilted
you never want anything wilted on your
table because it'll make the whole table
look wilted
so we always are refreshing spraying
with water
making it look nice all right so what do
you do about like stuff like greens and
stuff that doesn't like to be on the
heat what are some tricks for that
yeah switching it in and out of the
cooler keeping it fresh with water
flipping it over just making sure that
you know one side is not exposed to the
air in the sun
longer than another and yeah
just staying on it i mean just watching
it and
and restacking and refreshing so we've
consolidated
everything down as best we can and the
trick with the
and we're down to the last 30 minutes of
the market the trick with the last 30
minutes of the market
is that you can still sell stuff but
it's a challenge
so you have to keep everything looking
fresh as long as you can right up to the
end and you'll be surprised like
sometimes
we'll make thirty dollars in the last
five minutes of the market because we're
the only people with anything left the
only people with anything looking fresh
um so yeah you gotta if you have a good
market that stays good all the way till
two
i think it's worth like taking a little
extra time making sure everything looks
good
and uh nothing looks wilted yep
so glad i found rough draft farmstead um
coming up here we've walked past many
tents with lots of beautiful
wonderful things but this fine gentleman
here is the first one
to actually greet us with a wonderful
hello how are you
so we walked the whole farmer's market
we came back because your wonderful
customer service and of course your
wonderful vegetables
got to have green onions every day with
everything i eat and beets
are vital to life so you can see that's
a new customer that really appreciated
us
chatting them up and saying hello and
greeting them and it makes a big
difference so keep that in mind if
you're at a farmer's market make sure
you're not just sitting there on your
phone
you're out talking to people and trying
to greet them and chat them up and
it really invites them in and you know
gets you some more sales so
we're just wrapping up here we're almost
done with the market so we're about to
start wrapping things up here
all right so the market just closed and
jesse likes to make a point of staying
until the end of the market and i have
to agree that's a great move because i
saw a bunch of sales come in right at
the end as long as you still have
produce and we
almost sold out we just had a little bit
left over but pretty good day here at
the market in
we're gonna pack up and head back to
justin's place
we're back from market we got unloaded
and i have a few observations to make
and also jesse has a few more tips to
give you guys
but before we get to that i need to take
a minute to talk about today's show
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all right let's get jesse in here and
give you those conclusions and some more
tips just want to talk a little bit more
about markets in general i noticed one
thing was that
there's a lot of cash sales i expected
to be more credit cards i know you offer
square as a payment but
it's mostly cash sales right it's i
think it's i i don't know if that's an
assumption on the customer's part that
they go and they get
money from the atm but we do a lot of
cash business and
it's really great because it actually
makes things really fast when you're
dealing with cash as opposed to a credit
card
um square has actually i like their new
little chip reader though it is fast
um but yeah i mean that is it's it's
it's majority cash sales which makes it
even
better for that one for three two four
five model because that's just so quick
doing fives and tens
yeah fives and tens there's there's not
a lot of ones i mean we do obviously
some people buy three
dollar items or some people spend buy
three items if it's eight dollars or
five items it's 13. right
um but for the most part yeah it's five
or ten five or ten dollar sales and it
goes really fast all right so i know we
had a conversation too and i want to
talk a little bit more about competition
at farmer's markets i know there's a lot
more market gardeners out there and
farmers markets are becoming more common
and people are going to them more like
what have you found in terms of
competition i know you've been doing
this for
over a decade now so yeah i mean
competition grows every year
and i we welcome it we welcome
competition you know
ourselves but we've noticed like there's
more people growing
the crops that we've often been able to
utilize all summer like
lettuce and uh carrots and those sorts
of things
that um that originally when we came
into this market
um we were the only ones really doing
that and
now there are several people that do
that and they all do it really well and
it's and it's a good thing but it means
that
as market gardeners we have to
constantly be thinking like
okay how can we add a new thing to our
mix how can we
um like how can we stay competitive uh
so you know we're always thinking about
like on this new farm we're putting in
more perennials so
blueberries pear trees we're gonna put
in some rhubarb and some asparagus and
those are the kind of things that we're
starting to think about adding a couple
new items to the table so that
when people are there buying
strawberries or buying blueberries or
buying asparagus
they're buying our lettuce and they're
buying our carrots more
and that isn't to say that we want to
take away business from other people but
i like that
element of competition because it also
brings about a need for more diversity
on our farms
it makes me a better grower it makes me
think more about presentation
it makes me think more about uh yeah the
quality of the crops that we're growing
the types of crops we're growing my
communication with the consumers
uh i think a lot about those things
because a big part of what i do and what
i enjoy doing
is the salesman start the salesman part
i really get into that that's a lot of
fun for me
um so thinking about like how am i
meeting the needs of our consumers
um and yeah and sometimes i mean that
relationship
is another really important part of
selling your food because
if you're not building that relationship
it's not going to move
those carrots any better than anyone
else down the line um
so the competition is good because it
kind of makes you up your game like
better quality better customer service
better
building relationships and also you know
you're thinking about new market
gardeners coming into a market like if
they have lettuce carrots and whatever
else you're growing and
you yours looks pretty similar like you
either have to have better quality
you don't really want to undersell them
in cost but uh yeah it just makes you i
think that's a good
idea to like have more diversity with
longer term crops because those are
things you can't just if it's your first
or second year market gardening like you
can't just jump into that stuff
yeah yeah what makes you what makes
yours stand out right what
what about your booth why would a
consumer buy yours
it may be the display like we talked
about we bring that big wooden display
and it's heavy and it's cumbersome and
it takes up space
but it makes our boots stand out a
little bit um and
you know cleanliness keeping the tables
clean uh greeting every single person
we noticed that was a huge thing all
right yeah so i want to ask you one
thing so
some weeks you have less in stellar
produce or you have issues with
something like
talk about what happened this week and
like how do you overcome that yeah i
mean some weeks everything's great and
it's like the most beautiful week
you know and everything's great on the
table and then there are weeks
like we've had 13 days in a row ray of
in a row of
rain recently um and it started killing
some of our carrots
so we decided on three beds just to pull
everything
early and have baby carrots this week so
we know other other of our friends who
were also bringing carrots to the market
had really big beautiful carrots so we
have these nice kind of small
baby carrots and we're like okay so how
do we sell them like how do we make this
unique like how do we make this a
product that
you know even though it's not the big
classic carrot it's kind of a funky
small
carrot like how do we get people excited
about that um
i think i think explaining to the
customers too and actually telling them
what happened
the issue with too much rain and trying
to let them understand a little bit
about farming too and they're like oh
that makes sense cool we'll do baby
carrots this week
yeah yeah and i also sold it as a good
thing because it is like baby carrots
are delicious
and i would tell them like we pulled it
early because the baby carrots are
delicious cool i feel like jesse would
there's you could probably do a whole
course on
like on farmer's markets but i think it
was a great start for people just to get
people behind the scenes a little bit
and uh yeah maybe we'll do a follow-up
if people have more questions or maybe
later in the season or something so yeah
thanks for having me
let me tag along jesse yeah that was fun
all right guys make sure
you like this video if you like this
video perfect yeah uh make sure you
subscribe if you're not already and uh
we'll see you guys in the next one you
ready to watch some bends now josh
yeah let's go
[Music]
it's youtube bro all right
all right all right stop laughing so i
can
lie in face yeah like
yeah okay come like over here so it
sounds better
it's my offering so yeah yeah
i'm on a bridge that's a little loud
do i need to do it again
you
