JULY 2018 • COUNTRY LIFE IN BC


31 Preparation, customer service key to market success


Know your niche and cultivate


relationships by PETER MITHAM


VICTORIA –When the Helmer family first began participating in farmers’ markets in 1995, Anna Helmer’s mother was sceptical but her father was willing to give the idea of taking the family’s potatoes to the city a chance. “They persevered and now


we’re one of the bigger people there and we’re able to make a living off our farmers’ markets,” Anna Helmer told this year’s annual conference of the BC Association of Farmers’ Markets in Victoria. “Preparation is key.” The growth was steady – what Helmer describes as “a very human rate” – and yielded lessons she’s since distilled into A Farmer’s Guide to Farmers’ Markets, an e-book available via Amazon. She shared some of the lessons with conference participants.


The most important one is to take time to get ready – and that begins with figuring out if farmers’ markets are even something you’re cut out to do. “Farmers’ markets aren’t for everybody,” she warns. “If you don’t like people, and if you don’t like driving in the city and if you don’t want to be away from


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First and Still Foremost.


your farm for days on end, then maybe farmers’ markets aren’t the thing.”


Once a farm determines that market sales are going to be part of its revenue stream, Helmer encouraged growers to know what they’re going to sell, and how they’re going to present it. “It’s really important find


your niche. It is possible to make a living selling only potatoes,” she says. “We can make a better living if we also sell carrots and parsnips and that sort of thing, but it is possible to do it with just potatoes.” Diversifying her product


MYRNA STARK LEADER


offering comes down to a couple of strategies: having a range of varieties (her farm produces up to 18 throughout the year) and creative arrangements. “You can make one variety of potatoes look like a huge display if you sort them and bag them and arrange them differently,” she says. Growers with other crops can pursue a similar


approach. These might include offering carrots in bulk rather than by the bunch, or selling garlic by the head rather than by the pound. Display is also important, both up front and out back of the stand. “You can’t sell air. So when you’re making your display, keep it nice and tight – pile it high and watch it fly,” she says. “I believe in keeping the display full all the time.”


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