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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 -

I feel your pain.
 We found that chefs line up to buy what cooks won't be interested. 
If there is a hamburger on the menu, they probably won't buy from us.
When things were slow in sales,  we spent the off-season getting farmers markets started and visiting chefs.
After about a year, sales outpaced product and now 'rationing strategies' occupy us - how to evenly distribute amongst our customers.
We enjoy shopping pressure from about 4 restaurants who shop the farmers markets we work with, and a couple who don't. Our local Texas Dept of Ag. representative organized a 'Chef to Farm Tour' last fall. Contact your local TDA people, this is a statewide program and resulted in 2-3 of our regular restaurant customers.
If west Texas is anything like south Texas, CSA's don't do well, generate suspicion and hard feelings. Probably this is because our growers lack the years of experience to sustainably fill large orders on a regularly scheduled basis.
Recently the Brad Stufflebeam Yahoo Group (Houston area) spent week discussing a lawsuit by a CSA subscriber against a farmer. A very much beginner farmer from what I could gather.
Most of all repeat this mantra - "If I grow it, they will come"
Jack Moffitt - Tex Mex border - Bayview Texas
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