Setting up a business where you grow food for a living is a reasonable shout. It can include fairly low running costs, though much of your success depends on the weather conditions, which can limit what you’re able to grow. Regardless, you’ve enjoyed enough success to generate a lot of fresh produce that you’re ready to sell – but how do you offload it?
It’s realistically impossible to contact the local supermarkets and sell it to them, so your best course of action is to look for suitable markets. Markets give you a chance to set up a stall and sell for hours, and there are three distinct types worth looking into:
Wholesale Food Markets
Some markets are specifically designed to let people sell wholesale fresh produce. This idea works best if you’ve got large quantities of produce to sell – especially if you’ve been growing a lot of seasonal fruit and vegetables.
Who attends these types of markets? It’s essentially catered to the food industry, which means the buyers are commercial and could include:
- Local restaurants/cafes
- Greengrocers
- Hotels
- Food truck businesses
- Supermarkets
So, if you’ve got a lot of food that you’re looking to sell – and it’s primarily fresh produce – then wholesale food markets can be an absolute goldmine.
Farmer’s Markets
A farmer’s market is a more conventional market in which multiple farmers attend with stalls that celebrate the things they’ve grown or cultivated. This is slightly different in that you’re selling goods straight to the consumer, which means it’s not so much about selling in large quantities anymore.
You’ll have good success here if you’ve got specific food products that maybe stand out – like some big pumpkins or squash during the autumn season. It’s also a great place to sell things if you’ve taken your food and turned it into another product. The best example of this is fresh jam or preserves made from homegrown fruit or veg. Customers kill for this type of thing at a farmer’s market, so if you’re looking to sell more than just the raw produce, then it’s well worth looking for these markets in your local area.
Speciality Food Markets
Sometimes you’ll find special food markets in different locations that bring together loads of different food vendors. You’re mainly surrounded by food trucks or stalls where people are preparing – or have already prepared – food for people to buy. If you grow your own food for a living, you could still find success in these speciality food markets by bringing a certain product to the table.
Again, jams and preserves work well, but what about selling homemade sandwiches that only include ingredients from your farm? You could either partner with a local bakery to make the bread (or make it yourself), and then compose super fresh sandwiches for people to buy and eat at the market. There are, of course, many other ideas you can build upon, but a speciality food market could be a great choice.
Markets tend to be the best places for people to sell food, mainly because they offer opportunities that you don’t get by trying to strike up contracts with normal food companies. So, get growing, cultivate a nice batch of produce/products, and then attend as many markets as you can.