Yay! There's one coming to Louisville!! Thanks for that!

Same as other retailing the usual situation is a core group of key employees doing office functions etc. and the rest are often seasonal clerks and car loaders who aren't being used by management as anymore than bodies - when it gets busy during the peak spring season there can be a lot of bouncing around from one station to another, in response to customer requirements. Hence "monkeys". They all have a pyramid structure, same as other stores, with most of the people "on the floor" not being the best informed and best paid part of the staff - any operations that are doing otherwise are the exception rather than the rule. In his book on the subject called Profitable Garden Center Management (which I must have loaned out and never gotten back, as I haven't seen it in years) Louis Berninger (sp) described an actual garden center that had had an expert employee called Otto who was available to customers and able to answer their gardening questions, said every garden center should have their own "Otto" to meet this need. Note that he was talking about a single employee providing this function - of course in combination with other duties - and felt it necessary to point out the desirability of having somebody interacting with shoppers who really did know something. I know people who have been awarded the CPH - I can talk circles around them about plants and gardening. What it boils down to is that in actual general practice the advertized cadres of multiple expert staff persons always on hand to answer your every question is a lie. Both at big box plant departments and at large independents. Hence the numerous posts over the years complaining about getting a bum steer from somebody at a "nursery" - whether they were actually talking about an actual stand alone garden center or a big box plant department. In retailing in general the irony is that at the same time that diversity and complexity of modern inventories is driving an increasing demand for service retailers are moving in the direction of more limited service. This post was edited by bboy on Fri, Mar 21, 14 at 15:33

Thanks for your posts. Local Kroger has committed all to a hog farmer. What really steamed me was the guy who got ALL of Publix' produce, 7 days a week, and lied to the store manager, saying it was for the Buford Community Food Bank. Well, BCFB accepts no perishables other than breads. This I love: "If you know a tame lawyer who could figure out all the weasel words that might be helpful too!" Will go early this evening to our City Council meeting and ask our attorneys about this. May I quote you? LOL All ideas most welcomed. Rosie in Sugar Hill

I gotta agree with trianglejohn, in our little rural FarmerÂs Market more people buy my pies and cinnamon rolls than mine or anybody elseÂs produce. For the most part the difference is in the age group of the customers. In the morning we get most of our customers who are elderly. They are price conscious to the extreme and very picky about looks. In the late afternoon we get the younger working folks who seem more inclined to organic and local. However, I havenÂt found anybody at the market that thought our local stuff tasted much better or different than store-brought even when I offer samples. In fact, I have MANY people refuse to taste free samples of heirloom tomatoes because they didnÂt look like store-brought. The only thing southern Minnesotans are taste-conscious about is sweet corn. Probably because so much of it is grown here they know the difference. In fact I have even had debates with people who insist that commercial carrots from the mega-farms in California taste better than carrots grown locally. I do agree with others that educating the shoppers helps, especially in large urban areas. I find the news media in those areas do a better job at running human interest stories about farmerÂs markets and organic produce in general. I can always tell when an article runs about CSAs up in the Twin Cities because I start getting emails about joining. The big stories in our local, rural newspapers are about high school sports scores and property taxes  end of story. Despite the fact that I have offered to write stories and have written to the editors, very little is covered about food in the local media. What people see and hear in the media does have a big effect on what they choose to buy! So a story in the local newspaper describing how importing garlic from China is flooding the market forcing good ole US of A farmers out of business probably would be the best avenue to take.