Market Farming

["Adriana Gutierrez" <gutierrez-lagatta AT home.com>]

Have any of you identified any interesting market niches that you're 
willing to share with the group?  I'll share mine if you'll share 
yours:>)...

Arugula for restaurants - even though I live in Florida, a large part of 
the produce, especially specialty produce, comes from the West Coast.  The 
quality that is available is abysmal - limp, dull, product with dirty roots 
and minimal shelf life.  My chefs are happy to pay $8/# for premium baby 
arugula which will hold for up to a week and nothing is thrown away.  It's 
a classic case of the existing producer leaving the door wide open to the 
competition due to poor quality.

The beauty is, it's an existing product with an open, dissatisfied market.  
I have a feeling that one could make some decent money in a medium sized 
city providing Italian restaurants with premium arugula and basil, oregano 
and rosemary.  The way to sell the herbs is to impose a reasonable minimum 
for delivery, say $30.  Then, in order to get the 2 # of good arugula that 
they can't get elsewhere, they go ahead and order a couple of pounds of 
basil, 4 oz. of oregano and 1 # of rosemary.

Adriana Gutierrez
Green Cuisine
Sarasota, Florida