Market Farming

[Richard Moyer <ramoyer AT gmail.com>]

John,
If they are pickling them, they may be adding quite a bit of value to
the final product.  Marketed to the right demographic, these are worth
quite a bit.  When we lived in Seoul, scapes, when in season, where
the highest priced vegetable offered by the vendors we frequented.
And when we bargained the price down a bit with a lot of haggling, our
vendor was scolded by others for coming down at all.

They're not considered a byproduct, but a delicacy for those familiar
with them.  So I'd hold my price, or not drop it by much.  Another
approach is to figure the total return per row foot of garlic planted,
for both scapes and bulbs, and see how it compares to other crops you
are growing.

Braised scapes are incredibly good.
Richard Moyer
SW VA


Message: 9
Date: Mon, 17 Jan 2011 14:54:04 -0600
From: "stonecirclefarm tds.net" <stonecirclefarm AT tds.net>
To: Market Farming <market-farming AT lists.ibiblio.org>
Subject: Re: [Market-farming] garlic scape pricing
Message-ID:
       <AANLkTinjF7HA3GmmkLdmv2NhurUdejzR+DBGWHoUAQgw AT mail.gmail.com>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1"

Thanks Rivka.  I have sold them for as much as $5/lb (although sales were
mostly by the count, and, like yours, in a vented plastic bag).  I find them
pretty easy to harvest and pack and feel they may actually be an important,
contributing factor in making garlic a profitable crop on my farm.  The
reason I am asking about pricing is that I have a potential large volume
buyer (they plan to pickle them) and I am guessing they may ask me to drop
my price.

-John