Yesterday was our 50th market day at the farmers’ markets in the Kalamazoo area for this year’s season. Our season started on June 17th this year in the Kalamazoo area at the farmers’ market, where we opened up at the Texas Township Farmers’ Market. And yesterday, our 50th market day, we were at the Battle Creek Farmers’ Market.
For the most part, we have had more good days than bad days in terms of sales. All days have been good in terms of enjoying being with the patrons at the farmers’ markets — people at the farmers’ markets are enjoyable to talk to because of their passion for food, and the vendors are enjoyable for the passion of growing the food that people will eat.
However, there are good and bad sales days (for example, yesterday was one of them, as we did poorly at the Battle Creek Farmers’ Market —- don’t know the reason why, but could be because of the summer winding down; need more data to determine the cause).
One of the values that we pride ourselves on is transparency. We want to be transparent, as organizations tend to become opaque with their operations (and not necessarily intentionally — it is difficulty to run a business, and to spend time communicate rigorously). This includes with our internal team (i.e. team members), our supply and demand partners, and the members of the community that we interact in. This also means information that is positive for our organization, as well as negative for our organization.
However, it doesn’t include opening completely up about every single little detail about the company as some information can become personal for our team members, partners, and customers. Plus, that would be extremely difficult to do from an administrative and time perspective. Being transparent takes a concerted effort from multiple people inside and outside of the organization’s boundaries.
That said, we want to share our sales results for this summer at the Kalamazoo-area farmers’ markets after 50 market days. Below are some of the figures from our operations specific to the farmer markets’ which we have attended in the Kalamazoo-area.
- # of market days: 50 market-days*
- # of 4-oz cups sold: 1,740 cups
- # of pints ordered at the farmers’ markets: 40 pints
- Revenue from being at farmers’ markets: $4,956
- Highest number of cups sold at a market: 101 cups
- Lowest number of cups sold at a market: 8 cups
Since the start of the season for us in mid-June, the farmers’ markets that we have attended in the Kalamazoo area have been (also see our farmers’ market activity on the calendar):
- Battle Creek Farmers’ Market (10 times)
- Kalamazoo Farmers’ Market (17 times)
- Texas Township Farmers’ Market (18 times)
- Vicksburg Farmers’ Market (5 times)
[ #rollinforward | #joyouscollaboration ]
* A “market day” is defined as Rollin’ Gelato attending and having a booth at a market. If we were at two farmers’ markets on one day, that is considered two market days. The 50 market days occurred over 67 calendar days. We attended multiple markets on the same day on 13 days.