Facts:

Now, how do we determine how much something costs...

Too much... not enough... Or too much produce, or not enough... too big- too small- and this is all about the same items, depending on who’s looking at it.

We try to arrive at a fair competitive price, reflecting the quality sold. Superior, affordable quality is our ultimate goal.

We can’t calculate price on expense, or you wouldn’t buy it - I wouldn’t either. All our cost is jumping   through the roof. Be it seeds, gasoline (notice how prices go high in the spring, just when tractors go into the fields? Then the prices go back down, as the tractors come out of fields in the fall), packing or anything else. Labor cost is not even considered.

What we end up doing is checking what others do. The grocery stores and other farmers for example - if nothing else, we can at least counter the ones claiming to have bought it at XX at a ridiculously low price. Sometimes true for good reasons, sometimes not.

We also consider how much of something we have, and the market situation. If there are mostly Hot House Tomatoes and imports (often enough passed off as local), and we have a few first field tomatoes, the price is going to be higher. But usually lower then others with real field tomatoes at that time. But it always quickly drops to what we charged ten years ago, and we    always give plenty extra. This happens because we can’t store produce for long, or call it fresh when it isn’t. At least we don’t.

We also offer seconds for canning or just cheap. Our seconds are still great quality, just not perfect. I’ve seen many seconds that should have been thrown out. That’s not what we do. This goes for all produce, not just tomatoes.

Your choice.

We have Sale Baskets - you get more for less. If this is too much to use, we offer it also by piece or by pound. We even invested into a price computing scale. Expensive, but worth it. If I show and tell someone that they’re getting almost a pound extra for free, on a regular scale, many can’t see it, or believe it? If the new scale shows $ 6.50 and I say make it $ 5.- it seems to count a little more.

Why by pound? For years I’ve been asked how many pounds this and that would be. I didn’t have an answer. We sorted by size, and sometimes got an approximate weight on an item for pricing, but not usually. People wanted to know. For recipes, to compare to others who do sell by pound.

It does make things easier, and more fair, since sizes really do vary if produce is not machine sorted.

Now some are happy, and others are not. It seems to suggest greediness to some, but that we are NOT. We don’t charge pennies, and always round down, unless it’s a whole Dollar amount. And if you’re nice, or a regular customer, you know we give you something extra just because we have extra of something.

When was the last time this happened to you at the Grocery Store?

I guess this is the perfect example, of not being able to please everyone. That’s O.K.

Often I blame the MYTH that you’re supposed to barter and bicker with farmers for a better price.

Guess what - NOT TRUE - and not working. Pleasant people get more, every time.

 

 MYTHS:

 1) Bartering at Farmers Markets is   expected and welcomed.

 WRONG. If you want to barter, I  have to set the price higher then what I really want to charge. That would be wrong to all the people that don’t barter, and they’re usually very nice, and actually the majority.

 2) Farmers get their produce free, because it just grows.

 WRONG. We have to invest a lot of time, money and labor. It would often be cheaper to just buy produce (plenty stands and vendors do), but someone has to grow.

 3) Farming is all fun. You get to play in the garden, and then make a lot of money from the extras.

 WRONG. There is some fun, but I would rather call it satisfaction of a job you know you did well- If and When things work out the way they should. But it’s far from the romantic pictures in story books. Even farmers that have help, have to work very hard, and are pretty worn down by the  end of the season. The "extra" is grown on purpose, so there is enough food for everyone, and some "extra" to give away...

-Lots of  money...not in farming.

Can you call it cheating, if you don't report all your expenses for taxes, so you can show required profit?