Reselling isn't supposed to be allowed at my market, but exceptions are made, off the record, to resellers who are not competing with members. For example, a few years ago, after a very cold and wet May, someone had a truckload of sweet corn on Memorial Day weekend. The field corn was knee-high at best by that point. The idea of local sweet corn existing was a complete joke to anyone who has ever grown it. Asking the sellers where it was grown was funny. "Cairo, " they said. uh-huh, maybe that's where the corn crossed into Illinois.
I asked my grandpa about it. He said they let them in that weekend because no one else had sweet corn, and it was good for the market that they were there.
I wish I could get demand for a late crop, but it just doesn't seem to be anything like the spring. People are sick of tomatoes.
And I'm familiar with the idea of finding the market for a product before you grow it. But buyers want to see what you are selling. I'm not going to be able to get a produce manager at a grocery store to commit to buying something I don't have...next year. They don't know if a product is any good, or even that I will be able to grow it, based upon words alone. So it's a chicken and egg problem. Which comes first, the buyer or the product? It's hard to sell it until you have it, but that's the opposite of the 'find a market first' advice.
|