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market-farming - Re: [Market-farming] other food marketing methods - pricing

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  • From: Road's End Farm <organic87 AT frontiernet.net>
  • To: Market Farming <market-farming AT lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: Re: [Market-farming] other food marketing methods - pricing
  • Date: Fri, 4 May 2012 10:58:19 -0400

It may be state by state -- legal in some states and not others. Or it may depend on exactly how it's phrased. Or it may be illegal in general, but sometimes done anyway, the enforcement people being assumed to be busy dealing with (or busy not dealing with) bigger game than farmers' markets. I've heard all three explanations and am not sure which is correct.

I have never sold at a market that enforced minimum prices. I've certainly heard official advice that it's illegal, though I can't remember for sure but it may have come from NYState advisors so I suppose might be a state by state issue; and sometimes talking to multiple state representatives will get you different answers, and I'm not sure if this is one of those issues. I have sold at markets using statements such as "price should be fair to the customers and to other vendors", which I expect is legal but may be in practice unenforceable, but does give the manager something to use to go along with education efforts.

Education strikes me as making better sense than a flat floor in any case. It's really hard to determine actual cost of production for any one item from any one farm, let alone for all the items from all the farms at the market, in order to tell where a flat floor would belong.

Pricing can certainly be a major issue, especially with new growers or "hobby" growers, who may not value their own time, labor of their family members, proportions of their land taxes, etc. and/or may have no idea of common prices in the area. There's also sometimes the occasional long-term grower (often with other income) who first set their prices ten or twenty years ago and hasn't raised them since to account for general inflation.


-- Rivka; Finger Lakes NY, Zone 6A now I think
Fresh-market organic produce, small scale




On May 4, 2012, at 10:12 AM, KAKerby AT aol.com wrote:

Good to know.  Thanks, Rivka.  I was actually a little surprised when I was told, on my first day at market, that I had to raise my prices on this-n-that because the market manager didn't want me to undersell another vendor.  Given that it was my first day, there was quite a learning curve involved and I got the impression that was standard practice.  I'd be curious to know if that was something really unusual, or if others have had that experience (or one like it).  I can definitely remove the text, or at least modify it so that it better reflects national conditions.
Kathryn Kerby
frogchorusfarm.com
Snohomish, WA
Ruminations- essays on the farming life at frogchorusfarm.com/weblog.html
 
In a message dated 5/4/2012 7:04:57 A.M. Pacific Daylight Time, organic87 writes:
Kathryn, I'd delete that line. In many areas setting minimum prices is illegal.




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