Farm Wholesale Readiness Webinar Series

Posted on June 9, 2020 by Taylor in Business, Farming Resources, Management, Marketing // 0 Comments

Farm Wholesale Readiness Webinar Series from the National Center for Appropriate Technology (NCAT)

Been Thinking About Diversifying Your Farm’s Sales Channels? Ellen Polishuk’s Plant to Profit Farm Wholesale Readiness Webinar Series is a Great Place to Start!

Is it possible to diversify your market channels to work smarter and increase revenue? Farm “guru” Ellen Polishuk will give you the ins and outs of assessing whether new wholesale markets are a good fit for your business. Your $25 registration fee will allow you to participate in all three webinars, plus receive a copy of Ellen’s book if you attend the whole series. THIS IS A GREAT VALUE!

Farm Wholesale Readiness Webinar Series Topics

Is it Time to Scale Up?
Tuesday, June 16, 2020, 4:00-7:00 p.m. CT – How do you know if you are ready to grow more produce? Dive into how a properly done Profit and Loss sheet from your bookkeeping can be used to sketch out different growth scenarios. We’ll show you how to think about which expenses will increase, and which will stay steady. A local Texas farmer will join us to share his experience with beginning to sell to a grocery chain. We will also discuss how to prepare for GAP certification if a new market requires it.

Exploring Wholesale Markets: How Low Can You Go?
Tuesday, July 14, 2020, 4:00-7:00 p.m. CT – When looking at a new wholesale channel, the first question is, can you still make a profit at a much lower price point? Using a real case scenario, we will work through a crop costing sheet to see if growing more of any one particular vegetable is a good idea for your farm business. Additionally, we will discuss the importance of developing a farm safety plan as you go in preparation for wholesale market requirements.

Equipment and Infrastructure Upgrading: When Will it Pay Off?
Tuesday, August 18, 2020, 4:00-7:00 p.m. CT – Scaling up a few crops and adding a wholesale channel can often mean wishing for new equipment (root digger, transplanter, washing line, bigger cooler). Let’s work through a simple one-sheet analysis tool to see how long it will take for any investment to pay off. We will look at a few investments some of the producers in the group would like to make. In one example we will focus on infrastructure costs often associated with GAP Certification and how it can pay off in the long run.

About Ellen Polishuk
Ellen Polishuk is a farm consultant, writer and workshop leader. She takes her 35 years of biological vegetable farming experience to help growers around the country to reach their farm dreams. She conducts her production and efficiency consulting through Plant to Profit, and her farm business and profitability consulting through her association with Kitchen Table Consultants. Ellen is the co-author of Start Your Farm and writes the Farmer to Farmer profile column for Growing For Market magazine. She lives in the Agricultural Reserve of Montgomery County, Maryland, with her husband Dan, where she gardens like crazy. Check out Ellen’s book here: Start Your Farm: The Authoritative Guide to Becoming a Sustainable 21^st-Century Farmer.

For more information email Hallie Casey at hcasey@sustainablefoodcenter.org.