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market-farming - Re: [Market-farming] Can't Sell My Produce

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  • From: Debbie Moore <caverdjmoore AT hotmail.com>
  • To: <market-farming AT lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: Re: [Market-farming] Can't Sell My Produce
  • Date: Mon, 11 Jul 2011 14:59:40 +0000

> I just can?t sell the stuff. Bottom line..., they buy theirs at the grocery store, Wally World where they can get all of their food at one place, or from food distributors. They all look at two things ? price and convenience.

I and a friend was in a similar situation, plus the added angst of being in an area of a lot of gardeners who would dump their extra produce at the market. Numerous complaints and gist of it is, the market now only has 3 vendors. A friend and I started going to the largest city (1.5 hours one way) which made it worth our time, plus we were both seen by stores/restaurants who asked about us producing for them (I do value-added, friend a wide range of hydroponic veggies). It did take some time but by the end of the first season, it was becoming worth it.

>People around here don?t give a flip about organic, local, or quality.

Us too, only one market board member would come every week to buy and we did a huge amount of advertising/marketing/education. My breaking point came when my husband lost his job and I could no longer afford to spend time educating my community, who could care less.

>I haven?t even mentioned the cost and paperwork nightmare of hiring people. I can?t figure out the employee taxes at all!!!

I had two accountants brush me off as a cute little home based business. I finally found a friend with some experience of her own to help with the paperwork on a partially-barter basis.. In our area, 20K of herbal soap is unheard of (a few other things too but mostly herbal soap and I SOOOO wanted redo the scene from Pretty Woman where she goes back to a store who had previously snubbed her "Remember me? Big mistake, BIGGGGGG mistake") hahaha.

Best of luck too you, a couple lines of the best advice I ever received:

It doesn't matter where you live, it matters where you sell.

It doesn't matter what you grow, it matters what your customers want to buy.



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