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market-farming - Re: Restaurant lettuce sales

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  • From: "William McKay" <bmckay55 AT hotmail.com>
  • To: market-farming AT franklin.oit.unc.edu
  • Subject: Re: Restaurant lettuce sales
  • Date: Sat, 03 Feb 2001 11:22:41


Adriana

I am pretty small time, so I did things a bit differently with my restaurants. I made up some boxes, put my name on them, and delivered produce in them. THey in turn put them aside and I would pick them up when I dropped the next order.

With the lettuce, I used to put them in an individual plastic bag, mostly to keep them from falling apart. Most restaurants wanted 100 or so a week, but I couldn't produce that much so they got what I happened to have.

The price was embarassing. We agreed on $1.00 per head for the entire growing season. (I had been selling full sized heads for $1.25) I think the going price at the local produce wholesaler was .90 cents. The way we figured a price is that the owner would check his records for previous amounts paid for a certain item, then we would agree on a fixed price for the growing season (rather than what is the price this week). We all were satisfied.

I don't know what the local situation is with you, but around here, I could sell just about any amount of certain items, mostly greens. Chard(believe it or not) was in high demand; kale (the Italian stuff, Cavolo Nero); baby beets (chioggia or golden); heirloom tomatoes; zucchini (I had good luck selling some Italian varieties, esp the round ones-and a mid East type I grew but couldnt give away the few yellow summer squash I grew; radicchio; and of course beans and baby lettuce. One guy begged me to grow cardoon (I am going to give it a shot this year). They also would have killed for the little Italian onions (cippolo), but they were too much trouble to grow(except for my own private stock which was mighty good) They are also asking for Italian winter squash and I have high hopes for that this year.
Bill MCKay in E. Massachusetts

SeedsfromItaly AT hotmail.com Importer and seller of packet Italian Vegetable seeds from Franchi Sementi, Bergamo, Italy. Email for product list


Subject: Greenhouse questions
From: "Adriana Gutierrez" <gutierrez-lagatta AT home.com>
Date: Fri, 2 Feb 2001 02:51:21 -0600
X-Message-Number: 2

Re: Restaurant lettuce sales

Bill,
How are you packaging the baby's (what count) and what price can you
get for them in Boston? I'm in a similar situation with few local
farmers here in Birmingham and hope to get growing again soon. After
growing mesclun for 18 months I know just how much work is involved.
Baby heads would be so much eaiser.
>Regarding the baby lettuce, I have used quite a few different ones.
The
butterheads seem to be the nicest (to my eyes), but the restaurants
don't

care what kind I have, as long as they are baby types. Of course, I
am in a
pretty enviable position. I live very close to Boston and there are
virtually no farmers left in the area.



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  • Re: Restaurant lettuce sales, William McKay, 02/03/2001

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