market-farming AT lists.ibiblio.org
Subject: Market Farming
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- From: Richard Stewart <rstewart AT zoomtown.com>
- To: Market Farming <market-farming AT lists.ibiblio.org>
- Subject: Re: [Market-farming] Need Help with Sales
- Date: Sat, 21 Aug 2010 15:14:52 -0400
I do not do CSAs because I am moving from growing a little bit of everything to growing specific things that I have little competition in form other small growers. My friend is part of a CSA though and provides a portion of the share, along with 15 other growers, all of them small scale growers. THey have purchased items like honey and cornmeal from me as part of the "weekly one of specialty item" in the box each member receives. From what we have discussed their CSA does pretty darn good in terms of staying regular and consistent and the growers do not focus on JUST supplying the CSA so they are able to diversify if they want. I'd never recommend a CSA for anyone just starting off growing. I sent a post in in regarding how we do things but it never posted so I'll briefly describe what we do... We sell to three types of markets: 1) Restaurants (small, one off venues, locally owned, and trying to do local, with the exception of the Hilton, which is obviously a National Chain, but they still buy local in season, you just have to jump through a couple hoops in terms of paperwork and tax related forms and take payments one week later which is how most of the world works anyways). 2) Wholesale to retailers (small companies, also locally owned, that are NOT national franchises and are willing to work with us on seasonality, and small runs) 3) Direct to consumer retail. We do no sales on weekends, though that does not mean we are not working on weekend. That is our market farm related products... We also board horses (and bale all the hay and build pasture for all those horses) and provide bridle trails and we do commodity crops which has a guaranteed market with unstable pricing. We are slowly moving from doing corn and beans to non-gmo milled grains, non-soy legumes, and potatoes. We are EXTREMELY fortunate to be within the beltway of Cincinnati, Ohio and I always try to mention this in discussions like this. Location has massive benefits. It also means, that being in Hamilton County we get ZERO grant dollars in farm related things. Richard Stewart Carriage House Farm North Bend, Ohio An Ohio Century Farm Est. 1855 (513) 967-1106 On Aug 21, 2010, at 1:23 PM, Jack Moffitt wrote: To Mark in West Texas - |
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[Market-farming] Need Help with Sales,
Jack Moffitt, 08/21/2010
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Re: [Market-farming] Need Help with Sales,
Richard Stewart, 08/21/2010
- Re: [Market-farming] Need Help with Sales, Richard Stewart, 08/21/2010
- Re: [Market-farming] Need Help with Sales, Barking Cat Farm, 08/21/2010
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Re: [Market-farming] Need Help with Sales,
Richard Stewart, 08/21/2010
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