Starting a Small Farm: Marketing Options

Author: Eric Powers

Small farms have a number of options to sell their product and do not need to choose just one. However, it may be in your best interest to make a strategic choice between these options for distribution and to organize your operations around taking full advantage of it.

Selling To Distributors

If you would like to find the path involving the least marketing for your farm, it is best to sell your crops to a regional distributor who buys from many farms, and sells products on to stores, other manufacturers, or restaurants. The benefits of this system will be selling to fewer customers, and therefore reducing your need for sales personnel and marketing once you find the distributors who will buy from you. The disadvantage is that when you have fewer customers you are more at their mercy to accept lower prices for your products.

Selling To Retailers

Selling to stores, especially independent stores focusing on farm-fresh foods, will be somewhat more marketing-intensive. You may need to find multiple stores to sell to in order to move the same amount of product as when you sell to customers. However, you should be able to command higher prices as you are, in effect, cutting out a middle man from the supply chain.

Selling at Farmers Markets

By selling your products directly at farmers markets, you can potentially cut out all of the middle men and sell your products at market prices, or even above them. Consumers will often pay a premium for farm-fresh foods with the knowledge that they are helping farmers directly. Selling at farmers markets is time-intensive, however, requiring you to transport products to the market, staff a booth, and return unsold products. Investment in a van or truck and booth equipment will be necessary. Once these direct costs are taken into account, check how much you must sell to break even over time and whether this is reasonable to expect.
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