Starting a plant based business

By Kim Willis These articles are copyrighted and may not be copied or used without the permission of the author.

When I worked at the Extension office several people would show up every month who just had a brilliant idea. They were going to make some money off their plant hobby. Maybe they were going to quit their jobs and start a whole new career- farming. Or maybe they just wanted to make some quick money on the side selling houseplants online.  

Now there is nothing wrong with wanting to make some money on a gardening/farming-based business and working for yourself. But many of the people who walked through that door had just that - an idea. They had not done the slightest amount of homework on what they wanted to do nor did they have any experience, even with a business startup. 

I had a gentleman come into the office and tell me he had just finished planting 5,000 raspberry plants. He wanted some information on how to care for them and a list of places where he could sell them. On questioning him I found he had planted the raspberries too closely and on land that had been in field crops the year before. No soil test had been done, but he had applied lime on the ground before planting because a neighbor told him to do it. He had never grown raspberries, but he liked to eat them. He had just moved to the area and wanted to make enough money from the raspberries to retire next year.

 

I referred the raspberry guy to Extensions fruit educator for the area. Later he told me he visited the new raspberry business, which was already overgrown with weeds. He said the gentleman seemed astonished that he would have to weed, train and prune the plants and probably wouldn’t make any profit for a couple years.

When you approach people and want them to help you with your new idea, it helps to have done some groundwork. When a client emails and says “I want to start a retail greenhouse. Can you tell me if I can do that where I live and how to do it?”, it’s a sure thing they haven’t the slightest clue about what they are doing. The chances of them putting together a successful business are almost nil.

So, if you are dreaming about a plant business what do you do? You could of course pay someone to do all your research. Most people do not have the means to do that. You also shouldn’t expect to get every scrap of information about how to raise a product and take it to market handed to you free from Extension or worse, from another person who has a successful business in the field. Instead, ask yourself the questions below first. Then expect to do some work to answer these questions.

What do I know about the product I want to sell?  Do I have experience growing or producing it? 

First read all you can about how to grow/produce the product you have an interest in. It helps if you also have experience in raising, growing or producing the product even if on a smaller scale. For example, if you have been raising vegetables for several years and selling excess vegetables to neighbors and friends you have some idea what is necessary to raise vegetables for sale. The internet, the library, books and magazines about the topic, and people who are in the business are good places to start. Your county Extension office can also help on most topics. Become a mini expert on your topic. 

If you find out that you cannot produce a product- say pineapples - in your area, it’s time to move on to another idea or move to another state.

Can I legally produce the product on my property?

Doing something as a hobby is different than doing it as a business. You need to know how your property is zoned and what activities your municipality allows in that zone. You need to know what the legal production of your product entails, what kind of inspections, licenses and facilities it requires. You can get your zoning regulations and find out what planning zone you are in from your township, city or village offices. You may be surprised that even a roadside stand for fruit and vegetables won’t be allowed or that you can’t put up a greenhouse or use your garage to package and ship houseplants. 

Two types of laws could help you; any Right to Farm laws and any Home Cottage Industry act/laws for your state and if you have those in your state you should read and understand them. You will also need to see if the product(s) you are considering needs inspection or licenses/permits from the USDA or your states department of agriculture.  You need to know what it costs, how to apply and what it takes to pass that inspection or get a license. Every state has a list of what plants cannot be sold/ and or produced in the state. The USDA also has rules about what plants can be shipped and how they are shipped. Take time to familiarize yourself on all rules and regulations.

If you are producing a processed edible (jellies, pies, herbal teas and so on) or medicinal product (healing salves, lip balms and so on) your county health department may also require inspection of your production facilities and/or the purchase of a license. 

Once you know what rules and regulations affect you then you may be able to petition for a zoning change or exemption or ask for an exemption from the USDA or state ag department. You could also locate your new business where it is allowed by buying, renting or leasing a store, land or a greenhouse. But don’t start a business knowing you are doing something illegal, you’ll find nothing but trouble and expense.

While I said that your county Extension agent won’t be able to give you all the information you need to grow and produce a product they may be able to direct you to classes for entrepreneurs wanting to produce agricultural products. Your state may have a dedicated Extension program or State Department of Agriculture program that helps guide people in beginning agricultural businesses – or any business.  Utilize these programs if you can.

Can you make a living or break even with your business idea?

Once you know how to produce the product and if you can produce it on your property you need to decide if you can obtain the kind of income you want or need from the product.  There are no sure things in any business start-up, especially an agriculturally based business, but you should begin with at least some expectation of profit, unless this is purely a labor of love.

What does the product sell for in your area? Are there competitors and how many? Is there a demand for the product you want to produce? You may be able to produce 20,000 cucumbers and make a profit if you sell them at 10 cents each but if no one wants to buy them in your area will you make a profit if it costs you 5 cents to ship each cucumber somewhere else?

If you go to the local farmers market and 6 people are there selling organic heirloom tomatoes can you succeed in an organic heirloom tomato business in this area? If the demand is great or you have some better idea about marketing it’s possible, but you would want to carefully research this before jumping in.

Knowing the potential market for your product is crucial for starting a successful business. It doesn’t matter how much of anything you produce if you can’t sell it. You may get some idea of market potential by researching sales of the product in other areas and comparing the population and competitors in your area. Check out local sales of your product, look actively for places you could sell the product. If you are considering an online market how many sellers already offer the product? If you can’t come up with a reasonable estimate of marketing potential you could start small and build your market with time and experience but be wary of investing everything you have in the startup.

How much will you have to invest in your business just to get started?  Add up fee’s, licenses, equipment, buildings, utilities, supplies, labor, shipping and marketing costs. Your expenses could be small- a bag of potting soil, some plastic pots and shipping boxes. Or they could involve building and heating a greenhouse, potting soil and pots and a truck to deliver plants.

If you need to make a living from this project how much “pay” do you need?   Play around with the figures and get a rough idea of what you will need to produce the kind of income you expect. If a plant commonly sells for $3.00 and it takes $1 to produce each plant, you have a net profit of $2. Now do the math. If you want to produce income of $100 a week you will need to produce and sell 50 plants. And don’t forget- you need a market for 50 plants before you can sell them.   

There are many things to consider about marketing. If you can produce 50 bushels of wheat off the small piece of property you own in a good year and wheat is selling for $3 a bushel, wheat probably isn’t the crop for you. But what if you took that wheat- make it organic wheat - and ground it into a specialty flour and let’s say each bushel gave you 50 little bags of flour you sold for $5 each - well now you might have some decent income, realizing that your expenses will be greater, and you will have to do some clever marketing.

You will need to decide if you want to be a wholesaler or retailer of your product. Wholesalers get less for the product, but they also have fewer expenses and don’t have to deal with the public, which takes up time you can’t allot to production. Internet sales have made it easier for a producer to deal directly with customers but there is the expense and hassle of shipping and one still deals with customers worries, complaints and questions and there is time involved.

Be wary of scams

I had the sad experience of sitting down with an 80 year old gentleman who had just invested a considerable amount of money in buying ginseng plants, which someone had told him he could plant on his wooded land and make a lot of money from. Like the raspberry man he was here to get information on growing the plant and a list of places to sell it. In his case the plants hadn’t even been delivered yet. Since growing ginseng wasn’t something I knew a lot about I went on line, downloaded and printed some information for him from a reliable source.  We looked over it together and I explained to him some of the work involved and more importantly the years it would take to get a crop to sell. His spirits weren’t diminished, and he still was sure he’d be rich soon and I was a bit worried.

I asked the gentleman to bring his son in to see me, since he told me his son had agreed to help him plant the ginseng. The next week they did come in together and when I explained to the son about the ginseng, he knew immediately that his father had fallen for a scam. He convinced his dad that they would ask for a refund of the $5,000.00 the man had invested. I don’t know if they ever got it. 

I have heard dozens of “get rich quick by growing X” scams over the years.  Before you invest any money and time into a business of any kind do your homework. Be skeptical of any claims of fabulous money to be had in a short time with little work. Unfortunately, some popular magazines and websites feed into this idea with glowing reports about making a living off a half acre of land for example. It may be possible, but something that’s possible isn’t always probable. It also depends on what you call a “living”.  Do your due diligence in research for your area before investing time and money into any business project.

People at Extension and at farm or horticultural service operations can help you and direct you to valuable resources once you know what you want to do and have some basic knowledge of your desired business. If you have an idea for marketing a product, there are people that can help you decide if it will work, although this consultation is not always free. But the ultimate decision to start a plant-based business, or business of any kind, should be made after you have thoroughly researched the idea.

Consider a niche market

If you are wanting to start a plant-based business you have many choices.  You can start a conventional greenhouse, selling tomatoes and petunias or you can specialize in succulents or orchids. You can plant evergreens for Christmas trees or rare and unusual conifers for collectors. You can grow wheat or amaranth, strawberries or goji berries. There’s nothing wrong with starting a retail greenhouse if there are no greenhouses for 20 miles and a population near your greenhouse that might be interested in buying your product. But if the population in the area is small and there’s already a well-established greenhouse nearby you may struggle to make your greenhouse profitable. 

You may want to grow vegetables for the farm market. If you live near a thriving farm market which is close to a densely populated area you may be able to make decent sales at that market with your conventional garden produce, even with many other vendors selling similar produce. But you might consider a slightly different approach from other vendors by growing Asian vegetables, unusual fruits, specialty peppers and so on, and make even better sales. You might want to turn your blueberries into jam or pie.  When competition is stiff and even when it’s not, a niche business is often more profitable than more common ones.

What is a niche business?

A niche is a small, defined market. Demand for a product may be limited because of cost to the consumer, because the product is scarce, because it is unknown, or because it appeals to only certain people. A niche or specialty market is a small business that is producing an item that is uncommon because of its variety, method of production, quality, or uniqueness in the marketplace. Many niche markets that are plant based involve food products although there are many non- food items that can be profitable when produced by a niche business. Niche businesses are generally run by a family or small partnership.

Niche businesses sometimes evolve into larger enterprises and products produced by them may be taken over by larger markets as demand for the product increases. For example twenty years ago anything organically produced was largely a niche market product. As more and more Americans become willing to pay for organically produced food, some organic foods are being produced on what only can be called large scale farms.

Niche businesses can produce a product that was never available before, at least in a specific area, or they can take an old product and produce it in a better way. Everyone will not pay $5.00 for a loaf of organic, specially made bread, there will still be a market for $2.00 a loaf, white, sliced bread found in the supermarket. But there are many places where a person producing a quality, delicious bread from organic flour will be able to make a good profit.

In niche businesses the profit lies with making each item produced achieve the maximum profit per unit through added value. In traditional farming and greenhouse/nursery operations the focus is on producing volume, with each individual item producing only a small amount of profit. More corn per acre, instead of unusual or high-quality corn per acre for example. Hundreds of 10 inch hanging baskets in white pots instead of unique plant combinations in handmade pottery containers.

Niche businesses make their own market to a large extent. If there are hundreds of people producing geraniums and the market is full of geraniums to purchase for example, a large buyer will be able to set the price he wants to pay for geraniums and producers will have to sell geraniums for that price if they want to sell at all. The niche business can set the price they want to get for their goods (within reason) because they have something that few other people are offering. The niche business goal should be to produce a product that has value independent of traditional markets.

Uniqueness

Having a unique product is key to a successful niche business. That doesn’t mean that the product has never been produced before. Apples can be a unique product of they are a rare heirloom variety sold in a special gift basket. Niche products may be unique to your area, they may be unique because of how you sell or process them, or they may even be something no one has seen on the market before. Uniqueness will only take a product so far, however. If the food product doesn’t taste good and isn’t a quality product, it will quickly lose its appeal to the customer. If the perennials you offer aren’t really perennials in your market area people will stop buying from you.

If a product is successful it will soon become less unique as others try to emulate your success with it. A niche business only fills a niche as long as there is a niche. That means when demand for a product becomes widespread enough that many people are producing it in large quantities, the niche business owner is either very rich or has went on to another product. 

There is one thing I must mention here about uniqueness. If something you are trying to sell is completely new to the customers you will be trying to attract, you must be prepared to do some clever marketing. You may have to offer samples of an unusual fruit or take some of your beautiful unusual succulents to display at garden clubs and shows. When deciding on niche products one must also consider the typical buyer in your market. If you are at a farm market where college students are frequent shoppers, for example, selling organic tomatoes individually will probably work better than selling bushels of tomatoes for canning.

Empathize on quality not quantity

A niche market succeeds because the customer believes that the product has limited availability. If he or she could get it anywhere why should they buy it from you?  If the product is a common product, such as petunias which can be bought outside the supermarket, why seek out the niche seller? 

Niche markets thrive because the product they produce is of a higher quality than what conventional agriculture produces. The niche petunia seller will offer big, beautiful plants and rare varieties and colors. When someone sees those petunias in a pot somewhere and asks the owner where they got them, the quality must be so obvious the customer is willing to seek out the seller. A niche business owner must constantly empathize that the product is of high quality and it simply must be of high quality to succeed.

                        

Artisan concept

This leads us to the artisanal concept. Your product is produced in a particular environment in a way only you produce it. The water, the potting medium you use, the oven you bake in, the attention you pay to detail, all those things are part of your unique product.  It is like a dozen painters all looking at the same scene and painting a picture of it. Each painting will be different. Some artists will paint a picture that will command a higher price.  They may be more skillful, they may take more care, they may just be lucky in that they produced a picture that people find more appealing. 

That is the artisan concept for plant-based businesses also.  A small farm or greenhouse/nursery owner produces a product that does not always taste or look exactly the same-unlike a big food processor or a plant wholesale operation that sells to big box stores who strives for just that thing. The niche business owner has a close association and interest in the product, which tends to lead to higher quality and a better product.

Many niche markets grow out of a hobby or begin because someone is intensely interested in the product they sell. If brugmansia is your favorite plant and you have dozens of varieties of the plant and you love to propagate them, a niche business in brugmansia cultivars would probably suit you.

Most people enjoy buying a product from a creator of the product.  They want to talk to the artist that created it. That is part of the value of niche products, the closeness of the producer and the consumer. The most successful niche products capitalize on this concept.

Distance marketing

While the relationship between the producer and the seller is important in the niche market that doesn’t mean one cannot develop catalog or on-line sales of a niche product. This can allow you to reach many more potential customers for your specialty product. There may be only 6 people interested in carnivorous plants in your immediate area but thousands across the country. If you don’t have what is known as “people skills” distance marketing may be easier for you. Distance customers may make the difference between a successful niche market and an unsustainable one.

You will need to consider how practical distance selling is for your product, what costs will need to be added to keep a good profit margin, and what additional rules and regulations there will be for selling your product across state lines or country borders. And you will also need to consider how comfortable you are with the technology needed to develop the distance market. You may need to work a little harder to make that special connection with your customers that defines a niche market.

If you are considering a plant-based business put on your thinking cap and ponder how you can develop a niche business. The correct product, quality of that product, how it’s marketed and the skills and hard work of the people running the business are what will determine whether a niche business is successful or not.

Adding value to your plant-based product – processing, packaging and presentation

This is the last of a series of articles on how to have a successful plant-based business, whether that is carrots grown organically or houseplants you started from cuttings. In this article I’ll talk about processing a raw product, packaging and presentation of your product. These things can make the difference in making a good profit or barely breaking even.

Just as the major box stores are always remodeling in hopes that you will perceive something new and different to bring you into their store, don’t be afraid to change and improve your product.  A new look may bring new customers. Think about the customer you are trying to attract. If you want to expand into a new market, think of packaging or adding value in a way that will attract that sector.

If you are not a creative person and have trouble thinking outside the box, ask an artistic or eclectic thinking person to give you some ideas. You can get help with adding value to products by researching what is on the market, asking people what they want and asking experts to help you. Many state Extension offices have agriculture agents or agents that specialize in small business start-ups. Specialty associations may also offer help.

Processing – turning a raw product into a better sale

Other than going from wholesale to retail the best way to realize additional profit from a product is to process it in some way. Processing may be as simple as washing and labeling a product or as detailed as turning it into a vintage wine. It’s best to start with the simplest way of processing a product and evaluate from there.

Even the simplest methods of processing food can increase its value by double or more. But people get into trouble with processing when they don’t understand how to figure out the increased costs associated with it and increase their product price accordingly. 

Your processed food must be of higher quality and taste better than mass produced products of the same type to keep sales.  It must also be healthy and visually appealing. If you produce apple pies that are runny, with thick lumpy crusts and a little too much cinnamon, a few people may buy again, (those that remember mom’s pies that way), but most will not.  In addition, they may associate your name or logo with an inferior product or actually make negative recommendations to others.  In the age of internet reviews, you do not want that.

You must have your recipe and production methods down precisely before you begin marketing and you must be willing to discard product that is not up to quality standards. Food safety, such as keeping things at the proper temperature should never be compromised.

The time it takes to process a product is also a factor. It takes a few minutes to sort and wash greens and package them in a simple manner. Children could help do it. Making beer is much more labor intensive. Children might learn to help, but it is more complex and exacting work than washing greens. In fact, food regulations may ban small children from some processing areas. Your labor and time equal money.  Products that take more of them should be priced accordingly. 

Start with thinking of all the ways your product could be processed. If an idea appeals to you then research the cost and time involved in the process.  What kinds of licensing would you need?  What kind of buildings, space, transportation would you need? What kind of equipment and handling supplies would you need?  Could you and the family do it or would you have to hire help?  Do you have the experience and skills to process the product?

Outside of the states that have cottage industry regulations, processing food in any way generally requires that you have special facilities and obtain inspections and permits. For example, if you want to produce strawberry jam you will probably have to do it in an inspected and approved kitchen, not your home kitchen. You could re-model your kitchen or build a kitchen to specifications but that will be very expensive.

Some states will allow a certain amount of food processing to take place in the home without special licensing and expensive certified kitchens. The food is sold by the producer and has a label that says it was produced under the cottage or home industry law. It can’t be sold outside the state, generally that includes internet and catalog sales also.

There are ways you can work around this issue. In many places you can rent an approved kitchen for a day or two a week to make your product. Try contacting churches, association halls, village halls, schools and other places that serve food to the public and see if you can rent the approved facilities.  If you have problems finding a place you may want to inquire at the state department of agriculture or your health department. In most cases you will need to contact them anyways, to get an inspection code to put on your label.

In some areas there are “incubator” or mobile food processing kitchens that small entrepreneurs can rent. These may be offered by colleges, small business associations, trade associations or other places. You will be allowed to rent them for specific periods of time or even in some cases, use them for free. A good place to ask about these facilities may be your state health department or state department of Agriculture as they must approve these facilities.

Processing food may also require expensive and complicated or dangerous machinery. Your decisions on processing food items should consider whether you have the funds to buy the machinery and skills to use it. In some cases, hiring part of the processing out makes sense and still gives you added profits. For example, you may want to take your organically grown buckwheat to a mill to have it ground into flour. You will then package it into small packages of pancake mix.

After you have processed food you will need a place to store it until it is sold.  Shelves may be fine for your strawberry jam, but refrigeration might be required for some things. Transportation to the point of sale may also need to be refrigerated. Clever people can generally find a way to work around these things, but it should all be planned out in advance. I knew a woman who had several hundred turkeys slaughtered for a pre-sold market, but she had neglected to plan for storing the birds safely until they were picked up.  It cost her most of her profit to rent cold storage for them.

When you are considering processing food you must also consider the availability and cost of additional ingredients or preservatives needed as well as your packaging costs. If you are producing organic jelly and your ingredients are fruit, sugar, salt and pectin you will probably have little problem finding the ingredients needed to go with your fruit. But if you want to produce organic apple pies can you get organic flour, butter, and the seasonings needed?

Once again there are ways to get around these problems.  You can have a label that says made with organic apples instead of organic apple pie. But you need to research all this and be clear about what you are doing before you start baking pies.

Proper packaging

Packaging a product is one of the easier ways to add additional value in most cases. The package gives you a place to promote your name and the good things about the product as well. You must use packaging that is approved for that type of food or for transporting live plants if that is your goal. Proper packaging may just be packing apples into sturdy paper bags with handles instead of dumping them into re-cycled plastic bags or it can mean putting your lovely succulents into protective plastic forms so they don’t get crushed.

If you ever bought plants through the mail you know that you want them to arrive fresh and undamaged. Plant sellers who go the extra mile to protect plants often get repeat sales. When you are selling plants across state lines they may need to be opened for inspection at some point along the way.  Make sure the packaging can withstand this. Thoroughly research the rules and regulations on shipping plants before you begin the process.

“Convenience” packaging can make the product easier to sell. If you are selling homemade fudge at a farmer’s market include a small plastic knife for the buyer to cut the fudge into bite size pieces. If you are selling juicy peaches in packages of two, why not include some rosy colored napkins under each peach? This encourages customers to consume the food on site and the sight of someone eating a juicy peach may prompt others to ask them where they got it.

There are many places that sell food packaging from bushel baskets to plastic deli containers. Carefully consider the type of packaging and the cost it will add to a product. Since many niche farmers will be selling to customers who already have some preference for buying environmentally friendly products, consider how your packaging will affect that perception.

Don’t plan on using re-cycled containers from other businesses if you want to look professional and increase your products value. In some cases, re-cycled packages for food may be prohibited by law. There may also be regulations about what type of packaging a product needs for food safety reasons. Consider the safety factor even if it’s not required. If you are selling jellies and jams, for example, you want to have a container that makes it obvious if someone has opened it to smell or sample the contents, since opened products may spoil.

Since today’s family sizes are smaller, and market surveys say that people who are most likely to buy niche food products may be single or two-person households, don’t make your package size too large. This is where you need to know your market though. In some areas with a high immigrant population, families tend to be larger and the people more accustomed to buying fresh produce and using it up efficiently. In these markets larger packages will sell well. There are some areas where people still want to do canning and freezing at home and they want larger quantities also.

The costs for packaging decrease with the volume you buy, but don’t overbuy one type of packaging at first. You may need to change the package size, type or label after a short period of sales. You may also want to try several forms of packaging first to see what appeals to your market. Once you have established what your market likes you can buy packaging in larger quantities to get a lower price.

Gift packaging

Taking some lovely pears and apples that are blemish free, cleaned and polished, and then nestling them in a pretty wooden box with tissue paper nests will increase the value of that product considerably. There will be of course, additional costs, but the perception you create of a quality product will help overcome the resistance to a higher price. Gift packaging works well around holidays and for catalog and internet sales.

  

Gift packaging may take some ordinary products and turn them into hot sellers. Instead of selling jam in plain glass jars with a label, put them in a fancy wine glass that can be reused, with a ribbon around the top. Attach the label on a gift card to the ribbon. Put your artisan cheese on a handcrafted wood cutting board. Several types of specialty rice could be packed in a decorative metal container.

Gift packaging must also meet any food safety standards so before you pack the jelly into that wine goblet make sure that the goblet isn’t painted with lead. You may want to discuss any unusual methods of packaging food with your regulatory agency before going ahead with the packaging.

 

Test any unusual packaging and let it sit for the expected storage time of your product. Some things like foil or metal may darken or change the color of food. Some printed papers may bleed colors onto food.

 

If you are going to throw extras like a recipe card, coupon or the story of your farm into the package make sure that those also comply with food safety regulations.

Gift packaging can also take several ingredients that you produce and package them so that the buyer completes the product. This can be bean soup, with your dried beans and seasonings in a package with directions on how to prepare the soup, or bread mix, or many other combinations. This allows you to skip costly equipment and time needed to produce the final product. You may realize more profit this way than by preparing and selling the same product. 

Once again you must discuss this type of packaging, the labeling it will need and other considerations with your regulatory agency. Gift packaging goes well with complementary products, which I will discuss later.     

Labels

Today’s computers and printers make it easy to design and print labels for your products at home. This works well for small to medium sized quantities of labels. However, when you start making labels in the thousands having them made by a commercial printing company may cost you less per label.  For shipping products you’ll need a computer program that will print shipping labels. For selling live plants you will want some sort of plant name labels or tags.

Your product label can be a chance to promote your business and increase sales. It should be eye catching, but use simple, easy to understand language. Colors or small images can be used on some labels to catch the eye. If you intend to sell in an area with a large Hispanic population having a label in Spanish and English may give you an edge. Make sure you know how or can get someone who does know how, to translate correctly.

Your label should have a way to contact you, if you do direct sales, even if it’s not required to sell that product. People don’t always remember where they got a product and that label with contact information can mean a repeat sale.

Besides food safety regulations federal and state laws also tell you what must be put on any food product as a label. If you are going to sell a food product in more than one state your label must satisfy the requirements for all the states involved. All food, even fresh produce, must have a label telling what country it was grown in and if it was processed in another country that must also be listed.  Some complex foods like baked goods may be exempted.

Other things that may be required on processed food labels are the name, address and other contact information of the producer, the processing date and the expiration date, and a complete list of ingredients, (with some minor exceptions). Nutrition information is required if you do more than $50,000 worth of business in a year. Allergy warnings may be required. Other things may also be required depending on the product and local regulations.

To get nutrition information you will have to pay a laboratory to analyze your product and give you the information. Sometimes colleges will perform this service in their labs for a smaller fee than public labs.

For more information on labeling laws and getting nutritional content analyzed contact the Food and Drug Administration 1-888-463-6332 or http://www.fda.gov

Complementary products

Complementary can mean something that is given free, or perceived by the buyer as free, this is a marketing tactic. Or it can mean two products that complement each other and increase sales or that you package together to be able to increase your profit.

Let’s go back to the cucumbers. If a customer comes to your stand to buy cucumbers to make pickles, you could give them a stalk of your organic dill to use in the pickles. Or you could have bundles of your organic dill nearby that they can purchase. Or you could package cucumbers in half bushel containers with a few stalks of dill on top.

Complementary products have all sorts of possibilities. You are doing what big stores do and are prompting impulse sales. And you may be picking up profit on a product you would have a hard time selling alone, such as the dill mentioned above. The complementary product can be something you produce or something you buy from another producer. For niche market sales it makes more sense to use products that are produced by other niche farmers.

  

If you are selling tiny plants buy some cute tiny clay pots to put them in and paint them in bold colors. Add small packets of starter fertilizer to each sale of a potted perennial. If you grow herbs dry them and make seasoning packets for turkey, then add some pasture raised turkeys for customers to buy. Baskets and unusual vases are good to display near dried flowers and gourds for added sales.

If you make artisan cheeses and grow organic apples, display the two together. You could then add a wonderful wine produced by a local winery and some homemade bread. When you are considering combining value added food products, always think of foods or other items you could produce yourself that would increase sales and profits.

Presentation 

You can have the most beautiful packaging, or healthiest plants but if you just drive up to the market in a dirty pick-up truck and let down the tailgate to sell your products you won’t have as many sales as someone who has taken a little time and money to present their wares in a better way.

Always keep your selling area neat and clean. The seller should be neat and clean too, wear an apron if you will get dirty unloading produce or products and remove it before selling begins. Folding tables, tablecloths and canopies can help farm market sales. Add decorative touches, pretty colors, nice smells, neat legible signing to your sales booth. Engage in conversations but don’t get so caught up in one conversation that you ignore other customers. Your booth or farm stand should look inviting and clean.

If you are selling from a greenhouse or nursery the rows should be clear and easy to navigate and no dead or diseased plants should be in sight. There should be no aggressive dogs, mud puddles to jump over or rusting equipment lying around. Your own landscaping and gardens in view should be neat and well cared for.

If your selling area is an on-line page or website, make sure it’s professional looking and easy to navigate. Make sure everything is spelled correctly. Use scientific names for plants as well as common ones. Hire someone to put together a webpage for you if you don’t have skills in that area.

Decide in advance what you will guarantee and keep your word. Price things clearly. Don’t add extra fees unless they have been explained on your site, things like shipping costs should be laid out clearly.

Reputation is everything today with social media quickly getting praise or criticism out to the public. Keep your reputation spotless, address and try to resolve every complaint, don’t make promises you can’t keep, don’t price switch, don’t misrepresent products.  A good reputation is the best advertising you can have.

Starting your own business, which involves plants or food products you produced yourself, involves lots of research and planning, some trial and error learning, patience and perseverance.  But many people have found these small businesses to be satisfying and profitable.  If you are dreaming it start planning it, and then just do it.  And good luck