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market-farming - Re: [Market-farming] sour blueberries

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  • From: Road's End Farm <organic87 AT frontiernet.net>
  • To: Market Farming <market-farming AT lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: Re: [Market-farming] sour blueberries
  • Date: Mon, 29 Jun 2009 09:41:09 -0400


On Jun 26, 2009, at 7:14 PM, Liz wrote:

<x-tad-smaller>I don't know if it's all the rain we've had & now the heat, but we have loaded blueberry bushes--except the berries are mostly sour.  (The ones I sold last week were sweeter.)  They've come in about a week early so I'm not sure if later ones will sweeten up.  I should have known something was up since there has been little bird & deer damage.  I sold out of the berries by 8:00 last Saturday and they were priced almost twice what others had theirs priced.  I don't get a chance to scout the market before I'm inundated with customers & since we don't have a permanent spot, we're one of the last produce people allowed to set up before opening so we're usually scrambling to set up while selling at the same time.  Now I'm afraid those customers who bought last week will come back and buy these and they won't taste the same.  Should I warn them to sweeten them up a bit??  It doesn't take much and then the blueberry flavor really pops, but they don't taste like that on their own.</x-tad-smaller>
 

Yes, I would warn them. Explain that it's the weather (it probably is, and customers will understand the weather as being something you can't do anything about.) You might lose a few customers on the particular day who won't buy them, but you'll gain more customers in the long run: for one thing, they won't think your berries are always like that; for another, they'll know you're honest, and that when you do say something is sweet it actually is.



-- Rivka; Finger Lakes NY, Zone 5 mostly
Fresh-market organic produce, small scale



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