![]() ![]() There, you can make a listing for your farm stand and include information about yourself, your farm, your locations, hours of business and what products you offer. She also recommends a website called Local Harvest. ![]() Tamera Mark, who owns Iron Creek Farm in LaPorte, Indiana, says that people locate her place through farmers markets websites, so if you’re a vendor at a market, check to see if you’re listed there. However, having a little bit of advertisement can pay off. One of the benefits of a roadside stand is that its location is its own advertisement. If customers have to struggle to get to your stand, they will most likely drive on by. Can a car or two safely park near your stand? Is there a layby, public parking space or a quiet street nearby? “If we were on the other side of the road, they would have to cross traffic to get to us.”Ĭonsider parking, too. “They can pull right into our stand,” she says. Kwilos’ stand is on a busy road that catches the eyes of people coming home from work in the nearby city. Bodie has her tree-ripened peach stand close to the local dam and swimming hole. Pettigrew’s has her flower stand near a public boat ramp. Try to pick a spot near a popular place, such as near a tourist area. ![]() (Make sure to check with your local laws first.) Your stand can be located wherever you’d like, such as at the front of your farm, on a corner lot or off a busy road. It it time to start an honor system farm stand? There may be a size restriction on your booth, rules on the kind of produce you can sell or how much you can sell from other producers. Whether you need a permit for a roadside stand depends on your state and county. You’ll also be there to refill the bins and protect your goods from theft. You make more sales with a staffed stand by explaining the produce, helping with selection, and providing information about you and your farm, how the produce is grown and how you care for the land. You also have to accept that there will be theft from time to time. Kwilos says not to leave valuable products, such as maple syrup, unattended. A self- service stand with an honesty cash box is a good choice if you don’t have the ability to stay there. Your stand can be manned or self-service. Mandy Bodie/Sweet Peach Roadside Stand Manned or Self-service? Pettigrew’s flower stand is made from a charming old truck with flower containers in the truck’s bed. She also has a small outhouse-style shed to the side where she sells the farm’s maple syrup. In addition to a large permanent stand, Emily Kwilos of Kwilos Farms in Angola, New York, has a small self-service shed with an overhang to shelter customers from the weather. She and her family remodeled it and painted it a bright sea-foam blue with artistic peach decals. Mandy Bodie runs the Sweet Peach Roadside Stand in Ward, South Carolina, out of a 30-year-old peach stand that was given to her. You can put a lot of stuff in a small stand, especially if you make it vertical instead of horizontal. “Make it a small footprint, too,” he says. He suggests starting out with a movable stand or one you can disassemble because you might have to experiment with different locations before you find the one that works best. Paul Meulemans of Wild Coyote Farm in Berrien Springs, Michigan, sells vegetables, microgreens, cut flowers and herbs from a stand on his property. “Your neighbors will enjoy seeing your stand evolve, and it makes them part of the story.” “If you’re just beginning, start out really basic,” says Jesalyn Pettigrew of Mossy Gate Flower Farm in Mount Vernon, Washington. To give us some guidance on how to set one up, we talked to five farmers and producers who have successful stands.Ī roadside stand can be as simple as a cart with a few bins of veg or as elaborate as a small walk-in shop with a refrigerator. A little creative ingenuity and some produce to sell is all you really need. Roadside stands have endured for so long because they don’t require a lot of capital to run. We’ve all seen the signs strewn along highways and byways announcing corn for sale, farm-fresh eggs, Halloween pumpkins and fall chrysanthemums.
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