business Does Anyone Sell Peppers at Farmers Markets?

Hawkins

Hawkins

Just wondering if anyone has any experience selling at their local markets?
 
When I went to mine there wasn't much available besides maybe a few bells. Wondering about your local pricing and whats hot around you.
 
Personally I have quite a few super hots growing, and some of the uncommon like Jimmy Nardello, Shishito, just the good tasting peppers to eat I think will do best.
 
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IMO it's all about location. We live near a small town in a very rural Kansas county.  It's tough to move anything locally with the exception of a few jalapenos and some bell peppers.   
 
We can travel 35 miles north toward Kansas City (with more cultural diversity, higher disposable income and sophistication) and move just about anything fresh up to habanero heat level.  When we were active in the markets we could sell Nardellos, Poblanos, Jalapenos, Big Jim's, Cubanelles, Serranos, Shishitos, Scotch Bonnets, Bells of all colors and Habaneros.  
 
There is also some demand for Guajillos, Chilhaucles, De Arbols, Pasillas and Puyas.  
 
Ajis would generate questions and discussion but wouldn't move.  Even when we created signage about their uses; our only customers were a handful of regulars that asked for them.   
 
Superhots were a novelty.  The only Ghosts, Reapers and Scorpions we would sell were to the younger crowd and I would wonder where those peppers actually ended up.  
 
It was the same with tomatoes.  Locally we sold red and round, some pastes and a few cherries.  When we headed north toward the city we could sell blacks, pinks, yellows, oranges, striped, bi-colors and loads of cherry tomatoes.  
 
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I live in a suburban county well known for its agriculture, so its a good mix of a lot of people and a lot of farmers. I dont think Ive ever seen reapers sold but if in your county youre the only one who sells them I bet you could make the price as high as you please for the novelty of it, for like the people who dont know much about peppers but want to prove to their friends that theyre a badass by just eating one whole? Maybe its because Im a teenager but that would do pretty well with my demographic (we did eat tide pods after all)
 
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Some of our market photos from 2018
 
 
 
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My in-laws live about 3 mins from the biggest farmers market in Canada, we end up over there most Saturdays in late summer /early fall. Over 400 hundred vendors in the summer.

The Hot pepper selection is still pretty weak most of the time, but late summer there are decent prices on good quality pods.

Half bushels of lower heat like cherry bombs, jalapeno and banana.

Scotch bonnets and habs, sometimes fatalli, in quarter bushel baskets.

Very sparse selection in the super range but sometimes ghosts and scorpions.
 
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Gumbo67 said:
If you dont mind me asking, do you sell well? Id like to get more plants up this season to sell more but the fear of underperforming is holding me back a bit lol
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Depends on the market, really. I think total pepper sales last year was somewhere around $2500-3000, which if you consider I had 3200 pepper plants, a great deal of production hit the compost pile.
 
If you factor in lights, seeds, potting soil, and LP gas I lost money on peppers before they ever hit the dirt. Not even factoring in any labor. 
 
I was mainly wanting to grow peppers at the farm, but building a market will take a lot more time than I thought it would. :)
 
We sold a lot more of other types of produce than I thought we would. I sowed some watermelon, sweet corn, cantaloupe, beans, tomatoes etc last year mainly as space fillers, and to get a crop rotation strategy started, and "other" produce (not peppers) sold much better than peppers did. I sold somewhere around 6,500-7,000 lbs of watermelons at markets and to grocers. We lost the cantaloupe crop to striped cucumber beetles, the cucumbers were also badly affected, beans were a money loser on harvest (cost more to pick than we got selling them), tomatoes all split before ripening because the rain just wouldn't let up all summer.
 
It was tough pill to swallow investing some 300k in to a farm, labor, materials, irrigation well, etc.. to bring in a total of $5500 income.
 
This year might be better, we have a lot of infrastructure in place now and it's just going to be me and the wife working the land, so not as much labor expense. 
 
But yeah, easiest way to make a small fortune farming is to start with a large fortune...
 
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Truth:  My consistent best seller has been cherry tomatoes (in mixed color boxes).  I can sell as many as I can produce.  Other good sellers are sweet corn (bi-color), melons, strawberries and blackberries. 
 
Hot peppers have a limited but dedicated customer base that we need to expand on.
 
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TrentL said:
 
Depends on the market, really. I think total pepper sales last year was somewhere around $2500-3000, which if you consider I had 3200 pepper plants, a great deal of production hit the compost pile.
 
If you factor in lights, seeds, potting soil, and LP gas I lost money on peppers before they ever hit the dirt. Not even factoring in any labor. 
 
I was mainly wanting to grow peppers at the farm, but building a market will take a lot more time than I thought it would. :)
 
We sold a lot more of other types of produce than I thought we would. I sowed some watermelon, sweet corn, cantaloupe, beans, tomatoes etc last year mainly as space fillers, and to get a crop rotation strategy started, and "other" produce (not peppers) sold much better than peppers did. I sold somewhere around 6,500-7,000 lbs of watermelons at markets and to grocers. We lost the cantaloupe crop to striped cucumber beetles, the cucumbers were also badly affected, beans were a money loser on harvest (cost more to pick than we got selling them), tomatoes all split before ripening because the rain just wouldn't let up all summer.
 
It was tough pill to swallow investing some 300k in to a farm, labor, materials, irrigation well, etc.. to bring in a total of $5500 income.
 
This year might be better, we have a lot of infrastructure in place now and it's just going to be me and the wife working the land, so not as much labor expense. 
 
But yeah, easiest way to make a small fortune farming is to start with a large fortune...
Click to expand...
Thank you for being so honest!
 
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Harry_Dangler said:
Truth:  My consistent best seller has been cherry tomatoes (in mixed color boxes).  I can sell as many as I can produce.  Other good sellers are sweet corn (bi-color), melons, strawberries and blackberries. 
 
Hot peppers have a limited but dedicated customer base that we need to expand on.
Click to expand...
 
We had one guy with terminal cancer stop by at the farm once per week last year to get fresh picked cherry tomatoes. We had a bad problem with too much rain causing tomatoes to split, so it'd take me or a worker a couple of hours to fill up a quart and a half for him. Dozens upon dozens of tomatoes would get pitched to find a single good ripe one. Sold it for $4, cost $25 or more for us to pick, but worth it.
 
Sometimes it's not about the money. :)
 
Gumbo67 said:
Thank you for being so honest!
Click to expand...
 
Oh last year was a real pain in the ass. So many unexpected expenses, crop wipes, supplies not showing up on time, problems finding workers, etc.. etc.
 
The worst part is fresh pepper sales are such a limited market, *and* you only get a couple months to try to sell them. They don't store very well, so you have to pick and sell almost immediately. We used the plants as incubators to keep pods viable until we had orders, then we picked to order. Unfortunately this meant by the end of the year, I had 3200 plants loaded with pods that just rotted. We did one final destructive (rip plant out) harvest at the very end of the year to salvage the last viable pods, which I used for our seed inventory for next year, and to dehydrate what I could at home.
 
Pepper products (sauces, etc) that are shelf stable require a certified kitchen and lab work to properly (legally) do, to protect folks from foodborne illnesses, so that's a steep hill to climb for a grower. We're too busy growing to have time to do sauce, if you do it in any scale at all, so that's flat off the menu for us. 
 
Dehydration in small batches doable at home, but you can't let the dried products enter the wholesale food chain because cottage kitchen rules don't allow it. So we are limited to selling dehydrated peppers produced at home (flake, powder, etc) at our own market stands. To sell to wholesale suppliers (for producing pepper products, spices, etc) you've got to do your drying in an inspected, certified "kitchen" - and good luck finding one with huge dryers. :)
 
We're going to try to build a processing building which will be local (county) and state inspected for doing large batch pepper drying / flake processing. It's expensive, as far as a construction standpoint. The big dryers I've looked at are power hungry critters. 3 phase motor, etc. But we've got to be able to at least preserve the crop that we don't sell, in a fashion that is suitable for wholesale sales. Getting that built is a priority.
 
In the same building, looking to do organic wheat processing in to flour via stone mill, etc. 
 
There's just no way I can make it as a farmer just selling produce 2-3 months out of the year. We've got to have sales year round of shelf stable goods. 
 
Anyway, taking a big leap of faith this year that once i build this processing facility we'll be able to handle not only what our farm produces but also maybe others, as well.
 
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Another option to quickly preserve a large harvest is freezing. Wash, trim, chop if you want, freeze in flat ziploc bags to maximize freezer space.

Then, when time allows, dehydrate, make sauce...

Sounds like you have quite the project ahead. Good luck and keep at it. If you can get your own place to work, you will looooove it!

SL
 
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