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Episode Summary
When farmer’s markets are your only market stream, every week can be a gamble. Some weeks you can sell out every single vegetable you bring, and some weeks—particularly the not-so-sunny ones—you can take more than half of your produce back home, all slated to be given away or to be tossed into the compost pile. What if you can go to the market and be at peace knowing half the produce you’re bringing is already sold and that you only have to focus on selling the other half?
In this episode of Carrot Cashflow, we’re talking to farmer Hermann Bruns of Wild Flight Farm in Mara, BC to share their experience adding an online selling platform on top of their farmer’s market sales stream.
Today’s Guest: Hermann Bruns
Hermann Bruns has been organically farming vegetables and culinary herbs with his wife Louise for close to three decades. Previously dependent solely on farmer’s markets, they made the jump to sell their produce online when Covid closed down physical markets in 2020. Thanks to the shift, their business has now become more robust, with increased individual sales each week.
Relevant Links
Wild Flight Farm – Website | LocalLine | Facebook
In this episode of Carrot Cashflow
- Diego introduces the episode’s guest, Hermann Bruns (01:15)
- Hermann Bruns, his farm, and his business (02:37)
- Farmer’s markets as a sales outlet for smaller farms (03:26)
- Hermann’s farmer’s market tips for new farmers (05:44)
- Whittling down to what customers want to buy from farmers (08:19)
- The downsides of doing farmer’s markets (10:31)
- Why Hermann Bruns considered selling online (12:34)
- How the online store helped with wholesale issues (14:34)
- Hesitation behind completely moving the farm store online (20:31)
- Having options and reclaiming Saturdays (21:43)
- Higher sales with an online platform (24:03)
- Advice on figuring out online store logistics (26:40)
- Having less of a gamble with the produce harvested (31:47)
- The feeling of security of bringing to market produce that are already sold (33:49)
- Building convenience into pricing (35:05)
- Dealing with online sales order fulfillment (36:31)
- Orders, boxes, and truck space (39:48)
- Processing boxed order pick up (42:12)
- Hermann Bruns’ stand on selling produce online (45:46)
- How much time and labor it takes to pack boxes (48:07)
- The time it takes to set up an online store, maintain it, and deal with customer service (51:21)
- Deciding on how customers can pay for their produce (55:38)
- Hermann Bruns’ parting words for farmers who are considering selling online (57:01)
- Better off business with additional sales streams (59:17)
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