What are the top 5 sellers in a Produce stand?

[gourmetgardener]

Originally Posted by Wi-sunflower

I agree with Gourmet about too many growers selling tomatoes at my market too cheap.

At my market you are SUPPOSED to only sell what YOU grow. But there are a few growers that manage to sneak in wholesale stuff that is perfect looking but tasteless. So if you have good tasting but blemished heirlooms and can't give tastes, you just about have to give them away.

So while I grow out a WHOLE LOT of varieties and sizes, I mostly take only the small cherries and grape types to market. I take a whole rainbow and let customers taste as much as they want and it's the taste that sells them.

It truly IS the taste that sells them. At a market that lets me sample, I cut up about a dozen great heirlooms for tasting. That market is usually dirt cheap with customers looking for bushels of canning tomatoes for $10-15. But after tasting some of mine, they paid $2 / lb for mine. A few of them were $4-5 / tomato (2+ lbs each).

As for other things, it can be whatever YOU do a good job of. We do a whole lot of varieties of winter squash in fall. Some years more than 15 varieties. We have the biggest display within the rules on the square and are almost the only vendor that sells by the bushel bag (onion sacks).

I have also been selling Brussels Sprouts "on the stalk" for more than 25 years. While not one of the more popular crops, because I usually have the only stalks that are full to the top, I will sell out almost every week we have them. Anywhere from 50 to 150 stalks / week.

If you find something that you love and do it well, usually you will do well selling it.

Carol

I know your feeling about those that sneak in stuff from a wholesale - would love to hang them to dry.

For specialty tomatoes, did you ever try Paramount Seeds? Give Caprese, Orangino, Flavorino, Santa Orange, and Zebrino a try?