While wholesale doesn't pay nearly as well as retail, it does give you a chance to sell a lot of something quickly.

Setting up wholesale accounts takes some footwork and talking. You have to figure out who your market is and go find whoever does the purchasing for them. Give a call in the morning to a supermarket or distributer and ask for the produce buyer. Give them a brief description of what you're selling and ask for a good time to come in and talk more about details. These folks always seem busy, so try to keep it simple and to the point.

When you go in try to have some samples of what you're selling or if not, describe it well and have a negotiable price in your head.

Sometimes another grower is already set up for sales but don't let this deter you because once their supply runs out you can pick up from there. Most of my wholesale business just starts when the big farms run out. The buyer is usually able to raise the price a little in order to buy from me rather than getting it in from california.

I hope this helps a bit.

ps. In my opinion, pumpkins don't sell for squat.

What about CSA?

What about restaurants where you can get above wholesale prices and if they break a case you can get retail prices. Granted chefs can be difficult to work with but they tend to buy a lot better than a farmers market.

im also looking at selling options. How do you go about selling to chefs?

im also looking at selling options. How do you go about selling to chefs?

Our church bought 1800 pumpkins this year from a farm in New Mexico. We buy them every year to resell. We only make 25% on the purchase price. Maybe a local pumpkin patch could be swayed to buy your product? We only pay for the ones that sell. Some years we have to throw out quite a few that rot.

selling to chefs is easy as long as you follow a few rules.

Make an appointment to see the chef as they are very busy people.

Never do a delivery during lunch or dinner. This is a sure way to lose an account and go back home with your order. Best time to visit/deliver is either right after lunch (1:30 to 3pm) or after dinner rush (7:30 to 9pm)

Work only with restaurants that have an owner chef or where the chef is 100% responsible for ordering and menu creation. If there is anyone else ordering find another restaurant

Winter is a good time to introduce yourself to the local chefs and to start a relationship with them. Bring in photos of what you grow if you do not have actual samples (this is best) for the chef to taste. make sure they have experience with using local food and ordering from small farms or you will have a lot of eduction to do about seasonality and why your produce costs more than the stuff they get from Sysco or GFS.

^^^ what he wrote. Chefs are busy people, so have your presentation short and factual.

Adding ... if you can find an ethnic restaurant that uses a lot of something you can grow locally and in quantity, that's good. If it's also something that doesn't keep well, that's even better.

SO's old co-worker has a deal with a couple of Indian restaurants for okra, which doesn't ship or store well at all. It's simple: they buy all he can produce. Last I heard, he was getting $5/lb. Farmer's market prices are higher than that, but he walks in with the totes, weighs them and walks out with cash. No wasted time at the farmer's markets, no market fees, no hauling home unsold stuff.

Another friend does Armenian cucumbers to restaurants (Indian curries, Greek tzatsiki). Just that product, sold quickly in large quantities. He has a couple hundred feet of trellis, with 2-3 deliveries a week. They keep a bit better than okra.

another option is to sell to coops or other csa's. there is a coop that sells at the market i sell at. most of their produce is grown by other local farmers who don't want to go to the market.

I live in a rual part of tn, ive tested the water on csa's 99% didnt know what it was. When i explained they looked at me like i was crazy. Not many chefs either, well maybe but be a hour drive.

We only sell at Farmers Markets. I have sold to our school district (the one I work at) and at a grocery store in our hometown and at one 30 miles away where I grew up. We have several chefs who purchase produce from our market and they have a "Local Special" every week. I also had a chef who bought pickling cucs for homemade pickles for their sandwiches for weeks.

I don't actively seek out chefs or wholesale markets. I am not large enough to justify it, IMO. Also, if I sell wholesale, that doesn't give me much to sell at the Farmers Markets. All my wholesale "Sales" were because of an excessive amount of produce and low sales due to a glut of produce at the market. My sales to my school were because the head person came and talked to me about it. Problem is, I don't work for free and her budget for food required extremely cheap inputs. I wasn't going to plant, grow, harvest, wash and bag Romaine lettuce for 50 cents a head, when I was selling it for $2.50-3.00 a head at the market. She ordered 15 heads of romaine and 5 pounds of spinach(baby leaf) for the salad bars. I dropped it off at the central Kitchen and submitted my bill for $45. I got an email later that said basically she thought my bill was too high and she was expecting something in the $10-15 range. She paid me and never ordered anything from me again.

I have also been insulted by chefs. it was several years ago and a local chef (who is no longer in business) stopped by the market and said he would give me 50 cents a pound for the nicest red slicers I had available. Keep in mind this was mid June and I was selling out at $3.50 a pound. I laughed to my wife after he left.

I guess my experience with wholesale, food service and chefs has been nothing but bad, so I never went back to it. If the chef is willing to pay for a quality product, I will work with them.

For me, I limit the quantity of what I grow and grow a larger variety of produce. This makes my stand more attractive to customers and helps me gain and maintain my customer base. Also it spreads out my risk over many crops and many plantings.

Just my experiences,

Jay

to me the fact that csa's are not common where you are makes it an opportunity. here there are too many csa's. you just have to find the upscale folks.

I would love to sell to restaurants but there are none in the area that source locally. I would have to go the Minneapolis which would be fine if I had 3 to deliver to at a time (one hour away). But how am I supposed to get 3 off the bat and how do you get an account if they are already buying elsewhere?