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  • From: Richard Stewart <rstewart AT zoomtown.com>
  • To: Market Farming <market-farming AT lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: Re: [Market-farming] selling to restaurants
  • Date: Fri, 23 Mar 2012 13:53:07 -0400

I am reposting this since it never seemed to post.

We love selling to restaurants. Some loathe it. I think it all depends on
how hands on you want to be. Our pricing for chefs is pretty much wholesale.
Its easy, its a quick delivery (we gang them all up together and then do
charge for delivery using Google maps to plot the most efficient routes), and
most pay COD.

In the end they are simply ONE part of a multi faceted income stream.

We sell to chefs (this can mean a wide range of things from 1000.00 orders to
25.00 drop offs of a single item), retailers (anybody that takes our product
ad resells it...again this varies from Whole Foods to a small little Vegan
place that serves a neighborhood of a couple hundred...maybe a thousand
people), at a single farmers' market (we rate it the third best in the region
overall and second best during winter), and then what I label on my
spreadsheets as "others" which ranges from an artisan soap maker that wants
herbs and honey, a chocolatier, a couple bakers, and fermenting company (I
should probably call the category "producers").

The percentage of our 2011 sales breaks down like this:


Retail 39%
Farmer's Market 30%
Restaurant 28%
Other 3%

Chefs were our biggest source of revenue but we have started working a lot
with several retailers including Whole Foods that have just exploded for us.
A lot of this has to do with the economy and the demand for local foods at
all levels. Restaurants took a heavy hit in this poor economy. In the end
we supply three of the top four chefs/restaurants in Cincinnati. They range
in style from 100% local food head to simply sourcing locally for a menu that
disregards seasonality (we do not quibble about why, just happy that they do).

If you start wholesaling then you better have an exact grasp of what it costs
you to grow an ounce of herbs or a pound of greens. We've stopped doing some
of our own transplants for the simple fact that I can get nice quality
organic certified starts for less than it costs us to do them ourselves. A
year ago, with less firm numbers I would have argued that the reverse was
true.

I'll argue that ANY business is good business is good business starting out.
Take the small stuff even when you are taking a small loss because it'll get
your foot in the door and when farmer X suddenly runs out of greens and you
are flush with them you step up and start supplying them. Bide your time and
be a good supplier and things get better. Figure it will take three years to
develop a good base.

I'd also like to add that if you are not currently an LLC or S Corp or
equivalent then I would strongly consider doing this. Once you leave the
farm stand or FM your need to start thinking more as a farm business and not
family farmstead. You need to start focusing on GAP as well. You'll need
insurance for some and IRS paperwork and the like.

Richard Stewart
Carriage House Farm
North Bend, Ohio

An Ohio Century Farm Est. 1855

(513) 967-1106
http://www.carriagehousefarmllc.com
rstewart AT zoomtown.com






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