farmer's market question

[ignorethechaos]

I was wondering if anyone here has ever sold baked goods at a farmers market. Our state has a "cottage law" (aka cooking at home) where you can sell food without any special licenses as long as you state on your product that you are operating under the "cottage law". My friend and I were considering renting a booth to sell things like cookies, brownies, muffins, and breads; and we're wondering if anyone has any experience with this. How much stuff should we bring to sell, and how much variety should we start with? It's a decently sized market that goes from 8-2.

Also, she will only be with me for the first few times, because she'll be moving soon. Thus, I do not want to do so much i can't keep it up in the future.

This will be a fun experiment, regardless of profit, since we can quit at any time and it's relatively low risk. It's only ten dollars a week, with a one time fee of $75 for the application.

Thanks!

[TamieJP]

This will be a fun experiment, regardless of profit, since we can quit at any time and it's relatively low risk. It's only ten dollars a week, with a one time fee of $75 for the application.

$10/week and $75 for the amount of time is A LOT of baked goods. You'll want to know if anyone is selling similar. You will want a TWIST that makes yours unique & as you stated, you'll want items and amounts that you can maintain once your friend is gone.

Some baked goods can be frozen to be sold the following week. Marquita, worked with someone at a Farmer's Market. They got complaints about some frozen items. You'll want to know what does freeze well. You will not want to bake too much of the other items ahead of time.

Well priced cookies sell really, really well. Single serve items that are easy to eat while shopping at the market sells well. Having single serve milks in a cooler might be good.

If lunch is not available to the booth workers, lunch items sell really well to the workers. Salads w/plastic fork, sandwiches, pasta salad, coleslaw salads all sold at the market she worked.

If there's no pop machine, having cold cans would be an asset too.

To move your product from house to market, Marquita used SWEATER -UNDER-THE-BED TUBS. They stacked well and had lids. Foldable cart or wagon can be helpful too esp if the market does not have any or few & if the market is large. If the market does not supply tables or if you want more surface space fold-away tables are nice.

Ask for more information, I'll ask MQ to tell me more.

[ignorethechaos]

The 75 is a one time fee. We're just testing the grounds for farmers markets in general. I am thinking of setting up an art stand later on, and wanted to see how it works selling things. I figure that worst case scenario, we have a bunch of tasty morsels to eat later and share at church. Since I can't work in general and I enjoy baking anyway, I wasn't minding if we didn't make that much or if it ended up being a failed experiment.

I was planning on making no bake chocolate oatmeal cookies, nutella chocolate chip cookies, a couple kinds of muffins, and maybe some bread or brownies. We figured that we should make things that share ingredients so we won't spend too much on multiple ingredients or have too much variety that we can't maintain it if it works. Also, we were planning on using stevia, since that's the trendy thing nowadays.

Do most farmers markets allow you to resell things like pop or bottled milk? I was thinking of maybe adding homemade lemonade.

You have some amazing ideas, by the way. I am thinking of freezing some of the doughs and cooking them later in the week. The no bake cookies are insanely simple, so I could do it day before, likely. And i do have a couple of tables i was planning on using. I would love any more advice MQ has!

[Fuzzyliz]

If you can take the probably initial loss, and it is something you would enjoy doing and can use it as a learning curve - I'd say go with it! Make all you can, as much as you can and see what happens. If you sell out before 2 then you close up early, if you have stuff left over then you can enjoy them/share at church/freeze them whatever! In a sense you have nothing to lose from the experience. After the first week you will know if you want to do it again. Is it weekly? Here Farmer's Markets tend to be monthly. Have fun!

[ignorethechaos]

Ours is weekly. It goes all year, so if i like the experience, i can continue it. Also, I don't have to be there every weekend, since you pay per weekend. It will be something I can commit to better when we are able to move closer to home.

[ignorethechaos]

Tamie, how many different products did they offer, and how much do you think we should bake the first time (example 100 muffins, ect.) Also, how much would they price a single muffin or cookie?

[Fuzzyliz]

I'm not Tamie but I would think that question is quite difficult to answer. Is your Farmer's market busy, does it have a high footfall? I would make the number that I would be happy to be left with - so 100 muffins - if none of them sold is 100 OK to take to church, or something. Would 50 be better? Would it be better to have fewer number but a greater choice? As to price - I have no idea what pricing is like where you are, but I am quite hard up and will not pay a lot because it is 'homemade' and 'fancy'. At the moment here cupcakes are all the thing - they are lovely but I will not pay over £1 for a single fairly small cake - I probably wouldn't pay £1! Sometimes they sell for more like £3.50 or even £4. So you need to decide are the people who come those who are likely to spend a lot on these things or those who are more discerning and spendthrift.
I would tend to charge less and sell more. Or you could spend the first hour selling at one price and then reduce it down throughout the day so people think they are getting a good deal.

If I was at something like this and buying cakes to bring home I would expect to pay about 50 or 60p per cake; if I was sitting down there for a cup of tea and cake I would expect to pay about £1.25 for both. (for ease I would just say $ and cents there isn't that much difference anymore!). If you had a big cake to sell whole then I would buy that for about £3.

That probably doesn't help much, but it might give you an idea of how a buyer might see things! I also would always look for buy 4 for the price of 3 - or something like that. Even if it means you price something higher individually to then throw in a 'free' one - people are always tempted with 'free'.

[Jean]

Can you walk around for awhile for a week or two before to get an idea of what seems to be moving?

[ignorethechaos]

It's a fairly large farmers market. probably 4 or 5 blocks in the downtown part of the city (population around half a million for the area). I'm thinking less variety, since I can always add, but it would be difficult to take away. I'm going to price check this weekend, because it seems like things are more expensive there, and again, you can always lower prices, but it's difficult to raise them. I also need to figure out how much the ingredients are going to cost me (stevia is EXPENSIVE compared to sugar).

I think I will implement the sales for mass quantities (I fall for that a lot ), and that's a smart idea to lower prices throughout the day. That way I get more stuff gotten rid of before I have to go home. I'd have to be careful that it didn't make people wise up and just come by later in the afternoon though. Maybe that would just be around noon or one (since it's 8-2).

[Jean]

My dad used to go to the produce market in Boston (Haymarket -- near the Freedom Trail) late on Saturday nights - shortly before the sellers were ready to pack up to take Sunday off. He'd come home with flats/cases of needs-to-be-used-right-away produce he'd bought at rock bottom prices. Then we'd be up half the night processing it, lol.