THE FARMER AND CHEF SERIES: WHAT FARMERS DO WRONG.

I'm walking beside Philip as we pass what I see as a thoroughly solid market table. It's not diverse, but it's stacked high with some of the better looking produce I've seen yet––healthy kale, turnips, radishes––all vibrant and fresh. Noticing that Philip hardly gives the table anything more than a passing glance, though, I ask him what he thinks about these farmers. He says they have some good stuff sometimes, but the price point is often too high, and they don't really try to work with him. And like that we're back in the truck and driving off to another market.If I can emphasize anything that I learned this day traveling around with Philip and Owen, it's the value of the actual relationship. The price points of our farm can be high, too. I know that. But they still come back to buy from us. Why? I didn't ask them this question directly, but I would assume it's because we will work with them, and because we get along well. So even when they don't want something we have, I almost always try to bring them something they do want so as not to waste their time––in fact, every farmer we spent any real time with that day, pulled something special for R.A.D. from underneath the table. But this isn't about what farmers do right––we'll get to that in later posts––this is about what farmers do to make someone like Philip and Owen lose interest.When I ask Owen to give me an example of what a farmer does wrong he sites one specific farmer who was often combative and would refuse to sell them things they wanted because she didn't want it to ruin her display. Notice the past tense in that sentence, because they stopped even trying. As a farmer, I get the empty table thing a little. I understand that you may not want someone coming first thing in the morning and taking all of your produce, leaving part or all of your table bare for the rest of the day, and you with nothing to do (most markets ask you stay until the end of the day before packing up). An empty table does not bring in customers. That being said, I know few farmers whose goal is to have anything less than an empty table at the end of the day. That's at least part of the point––to sell the food you bring. Also, with a good relationship to a chef, they may tell you what they are looking for in advance––"can you have twenty pounds of this for me next week?"––so you can plan for it and keep it off your table in the first place.Anyway, maybe this farmer, or the farmers I started this post with, just don't care to sell to restaurants. Because not all farmers do. Not all farmers see the value in it which begs the question, what is the value in selling to restaurants? At a busy market, you may have no reason to get rid of your produce early. You may have other regular customers who will pay full price for everything until you completely sell out week after week. So is it even worth building up that relationship? If they're paying a lower price, why should a farmer bother?For me, for starters, having worked in high level restaurants, I enjoy selling to them. I enjoy foraging or growing items I wouldn't normally bother with for a market table. I also like the idea of someone buying in bulk from us when I do not know what the market turnout will be––when I do not know what other farmers are bringing. They want forty pounds of tomatoes from the front table? Great. Because everyone else has them, too, and who knows if we'll be able to sell them otherwise. If we see or suspect we're the only ones who brought tomatoes that day, we might just ask full price for all of them, which means the chefs may not buy them. If I know I can get full price for something over the course of the day, I won't discount it and they understand that. They understand about the price because we have a good working relationship. So, finding the value in selling to chefs isn't much of a struggle for us.Though I know farmers who are successful at doing this, I don't want it to sound like an advertisement for selling only to chefs, thus neglecting the regular market customer. Not at all. In fact, we don't even remotely do that. We sell primarily to customers through a CSA, then we sell mostly specific, requested items to chefs like Philip and Owen (most of which we actually also do give in our CSA––daylillies for instance). Sure, they buy off our table, but mostly we bring them something they needed or wanted. Anyhow, I think it's important to consider the potential––the business potential––in building a relationship with chefs. Because the truth is you, along with the rest of the farmers, may have a bumper crop of amazing looking kale one week––more than you will ever sell in one fall market day––and the person who the chef is going to buy a pile from is the farmer who has made the effort to build a relationship. Even at a small discount––and they're not expecting free food here––it's a nice bit of security.How do you make this connection? Just stop them and talk to them. See what they need, sure, but more so, just tell them what you have. Shake their hands, tell them you see them at the market all the time and you'd love to work with them. Believe me, if you make the effort, they will take notice, and they will look at your table.There may be more posts on what farmers do wrong, but I say next week we do a post about what farmers do right, and what chefs do wrong. So stay tuned. Well, not literally. Go work, then check back next week. Oh, and feel free to add some commentary below––I'd love to hear what you think about the farmer/chef relationship.- Jesse.