4. What we don’t grow
No Sweet Corn
No Tree fruit or berries
No Fancy pants flowers
5. 1. Fun (high quality of life is a Must)
2. Make a Living
3. No or Low Debt
4. We like people (workers, customers,
neighbors)
5. Keep investing in capital assets
6. Machines are cool
7. Organic Practices
7. Where we don’t market
PVF has gone from 100% wholesale to 1% in 45 years
A very few Restaurants
No Wholesale (other stands, stores)
No real PYO
No Agritainment (beyond simple tours in October)
10. Farmer to Eaters - Key Observations…
•No matter to whom you sell in the supply chain you are selling
a basket of goods and services.
•Different baskets exist for
each different type entity in
Processing Packaging
the supply chain.
•Each good and service
becomes part of your A Vegetable Logistics
business, and must be
managed to keep cost below
market price.
Basket of goods and services
11. Farmer to Eaters
Eaters/Feeders
Key Strategic Decisions:
To whom do we sell?
Retailer Meal
Maker/Seller
What do we sell?
Wholesaler Wholesaler
Subordinate Questions:
What value statement is needed by
Processor Processor
each target customer group?
Does it match Farmers
our value statement?
Farmers
12. What is YOUR Value Statement?
Crops
Heirloom, exotic, down-home,
Methods
Organic/ecoganic/pesticide-free/Biodynamic
Free range, Cage free, non-GMO feed
Ethics
Cruelty free
Worker respect
Environmentally Friendly
Family Friendly
Timing/Season
13. What is YOUR Value Statement?
Taste
Freshness
Reliability/consistency
Packaging, post harvest practices
(dirty, clean, clamshell, recyclable container)
Intangibles:
Reputation
Stewardship
Trustworthiness
14. PVF Value Statement:
Local
Ecoganic
Fresh
Tasty and nutritious
Family farmed
Happy, empowered workers
15. The Logic Flow
For a given customer or class of customers:
•Determine the Basket of Goods & Services.
•Define the value statement.
•How you will differentiate your business from competitors?
•Determine the price range possible
•Determine the cost of creating the Basket with the value parameters.
•Match cost to price and see if you can make money.
•If you can’t - then go back and do it all over again with
modifications.
•If you still can’t – then do grow it!
16. Why this isn’t easy?
How to determine cost of production?
19. Farmers CSA U-Pick Farm Wholesale
Markets Stand
Reuseable plastic crates R X O R R
Cardboard boxes O O O O X
Twist ties, packaging, X O NA R X
Customer shopping bags X O X X NA
Farm signs X X X X NA
Building, tent, tables X X X X NA
Cash register X NA X X NA
Pricing signs X NA X X NA
Market fees X NA NA NA NA
Brochures, flyers O R R O O
Advertising NA R R O NA
Delivery X NA NA NA X
Washing, sorting equip O O NA O R
20. CSA
pros and cons
Good early money Stress of the Promise
Weatherproof income Pushes you to increase
Builds customer loyalty variety even if it’s not
Buy from other growers
profitable
Administration
Spreads economic
impact of any one crop headaches
Recipe/weird vegetable
handholding
24. Farmers Market
Pros and Cons
Fun to set up (for me!) Bad weather = bad $
Great customer rapport Gone from farm – it’s a
No promise, no long day
disappointment Serious competition
31. Roadside Stand
Pros and Cons
You are HOME! Relentless hours
Sell other farmers Infrastructure cost:
product refrigeration, furniture
Total control Zoning issues
Build community
support for farm
39. Balancing the Vegetable/Work
Flow over the Week
Tuesday Thursday Saturday
• Pick for CSA • Pick for Small • Pick for • Stand open
• Clear out • CSA day market • Stand open markets • Farmers • REST
leftovers • Stand open • Stand open • FARMWORK • Stand open markets
• Stand open
Monday Wednesday Friday Sunday
40. Value #1 High Quality of Life
9 month farm season
no Sunday market for Ellen (once did 2!)
8 (ish) hour work days
Long lunch experiment
Hire plenty of people and use experts
Ecoganic/organic
Machines help my back
Very few animals make me happy
Avoiding debt = stress avoidance
41. Value #4 We Like People
Team Management of tri-woman owned farm
Hire lots of help
All retail sales
On-farm tours, limited PYO
Hire experts to do some of our work for us:
Mechanic, tax prep, waste management, fences
Lani grows eggs
Zach and Heinz grow early and late veggie
44. Profit as % of Gross Sales
90
80
70
60
50
40
30
20
10
0
Wholesale U-Pick with Farmers Farm Stand CSA
Farm Stand Market (unstaffed)
Notas do Editor
Check these numbers, what is wholesale number this year?