farmers markets

[cowman]

Just wondered what percentage of your produce do you end up taking home? I see a lot of produce still around late in the market. Is this just a loss. Kind of changes the economics of the whole thing if you have to toss half of it?

[rodb]

Hi Cowman

I just saw this today and thought I would respond.

We are set up to maintain thingsover a few days or weeks depending on product. Somethings do only go to market once and have to be thrown away or could possibly go to food bank.

Prices need to be representative of the perishabilty of the product and one needs to go to more than one market a week to make a go of it.

[dmarti9]

Alot of farmers that I've worked with and learnt from will study their markets to know how much will they sell at farmers markets, how much they sell at farm stands and other avenues such as retail, wholesale, co-ops, and CSA baskets. Once you know these amounts then you decide how much to grow. Nothings a loss though, employees are happy to take home these fruits and vegetables in exchange for less salary, as well as food banks as rodb was saying. But, if you really want to make a profit of every last thing you grow and don't want to eat it all, you can always hire a helping hand to transform the vegetables for frozen conservatives and jams for the winter time.