Ep. 419 - Farmers' Market Recap

With fall approaching and the kids going back to school...change is in the air!  Join Rob today as he discusses the farmers' market last weekend in this Monday Farmers' Market Update!  

You'll hear some background on the Medina Farmers' Market, how the market is structured and managed, and some of the special events that are scheduled to take place this season.  

There's also some dialogue on how the return of the school year brings on some additional change in operations here on the homestead, and what you can look forward to in tomorrow's episode (an update on Computer File Organization and Storage).

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Discussion Links:

Medina Square Farmers' Market

The LOTS Project
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York Meadow Farm: Lacto-Fermented Foods
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Transcript

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SPEAKER_00 0:00

If we stand together, we'll never fall. We can make a difference.

SPEAKER_01 0:12

Well, hi there and welcome back to another episode of the All Around Growth Podcast. Today is Monday, September 12th, 2022. This is episode number 14. 14? This is episode number 419 of a show where you join me as I build a life and homestead with my family, where we talk about the five W's and how as I grow along with the family business here at York Meadow Farm. And the topic of today's show is the farmers market recap. We're going to start doing a Monday farmers market recap. And the reason being is we're going to have more focus and more emphasis on the story taking place here at the homestead and ultimately the end result of all the work that's been going on over the past few years. Now the end result of everything that's going on here on the homestead is the family business. And even though the dynamic of the family business itself appears to be changing, um, you know, and that's that's kind of a discussion for the for the big five-year picture, which is something that dad and I often talk about while pounding kraut and packing pickles. But um we'll get into that later. But the family business is something that we will be discussing a bit more moving forward due to the fact that it's become a big, well, a bigger part of my life lately, especially since May when I left my day job. And along with family business comes our attendance at farmers markets. So beginning today and moving forward every Monday, we're gonna do a farmers market recap of the past week. And soon enough, this farmers market recap is going to be uh, you know, not just the past weekend, but it will be the past week. So we're gonna talk about you know successes from the market, uh, failures from the market, and everything that that goes along as we grow the family business. So the only market right now that we are attending is the Medina Farmers Market. And I've talked about the Medina Farmers Market in the past, and I might as well touch on it again now. Um just briefly. The Medina Farmers Market started in 2005. Uh it changed ownership or management rather over the next five to six years before an organization called Main Street Medina took over and assumed management of the market in 2011. That was the year that we joined the Medina Farmers Market and we've been there ever since, with the exception of a couple of years, due to some uncertainty with market dynamics on account of everything related to the pandemic. Alright, so there's a little bit of uh a snapshot about the Medina Farmers Market and the way that it works now, well, it works very well. Uh there's a the market manager is named Angela, and she does a bang up job coordinating and organizing everything that goes on with the market. Um there is an app out there, it's it's kind of like a social media app, it's called Band, and she encourages us to well, she doesn't encourage us, it's this is what we use. And uh what's nice is you know you don't even have to have it on your phone, it makes things easier, but everything's accessible through your browser. And what she does is she sends out information the week ahead, follows up with information about the market and a survey each week following the market, and uh what you know, for example, for this past weekend, the up uh the market on September 10th, you know, we get a little a little message from her called In the Know. And there's things to know for the week ahead, and like uh, for example, a manager's message, like Customer Appreciation Day, that was last Saturday, the 10th. And we will have free raffle tickets for two market baskets, random giveaways to guests wearing farmers market gear on Saturday, bubbles and bows photo opportunities areas, a caricature artist, signs throughout the market area, live music, and a customer survey. Now, admittedly, uh, if I'd read this a little bit more in depth prior to the market, I could have answered some of the customers' questions a little bit better about what exactly was going on instead of pointing them down there and saying, go check it out. But at the same time, we were trying to just move people along because sales were greater than we expected. But I will touch on that in just a second. Um, along with this preliminary message that we receive, including some notes from the managers uh or the manager also about um various contests and new vendors uh for the for the next season. Um there's logistics about setup where people are located, um, featured vendors and things like that, and just any and all upcoming events. Like, for example, September 10th was Customer Appreciation Day, September 22nd is the first day of fall, October 1st is Pumpkin Spice Latte Day, October 8th is Pack Your Pantry, and October 15th is Stock Up Saturday and the Chocolate Walk as the market comes to a close. She also provides numbers from the previous week's um attendance, you know, how much Snap tokens and produce perks tokens were distributed and everything like that. So it's a real comprehensive breakdown that she provides to us for all the vendors and for anybody out there listening that participates in farmers markets where things don't really operate this way. I would encourage you to, you know, um share this mess or share this podcast with uh either those in your circles or just out there on social media because I I think Angela does a great job organizing, and I think that she can really uh provide a good solid example for management at other markets. And you know, I'm just I'm just throwing that out there because my you know my market experience is limited and other markets maybe run even more smoothly than this, and if that's the case, then that's wonderful. But I I I I have a sneaking suspicion that not all farmers' markets run as smoothly as the Medina Square farmers market. But, anyways, enough on the market itself and uh the customer appreciation day. Let's get back to the actual market on Saturday and how it was. Now, generally, after Labor Day, one of the things that we expect and and has historically happened is a decline in sales. You know, schools back in session, um, activities with the family and the kids are picking up in the fall, and generally attendance at farmers markets is one of the things that a lot of people sacrifice with life on life's terms. However, oh, and and ultimately because we expected that, we did not take as much product as we have taken in past weeks. What happened? We sold out of traditional, we sold out of Curtito, we sold out of kimchi, we sold out of something else. We we uh um and that that that was disappointing, you know. Uh I mean of course it's good to sell out, but it was disappointing because we deliberately took less. And had we taken more, we would have sold more. Because sometimes when you don't have exactly what the customer wants, you can't really upsell them to something else. They've got their mind on what they want, and if they don't have it, they don't want it. Or if you don't have it, uh they don't want an alternative. So it's always good to, you know, I guess that the lesson learned is you know, bringing home products sucks, double handling products suck. But at the same time, I'd rather bring a little extra home having made a little extra money than bring less home and having lost out at the market. So that's that's a little learning, little learning lesson for uh for what we experienced on Saturday the 10th. Now, what's coming up for the next market here on Saturday the 17th is um nothing special. It's it looks like it's just uh just another market. There's uh there's no featured vendors, there's there's not a whole lot going on. We had customer appreciation week, and that was kind of a big deal. Now, I I don't think that we're going to follow suit in terms of the amount of stock and the amount of product that we take to the market, and uh we are going to take even more because even as sales generally decline, what we experienced on Saturday was far more than we than we were anticipating. And it was just a couple of weeks ago where we had the best market season to date, so we are definitely growing. There is increased demand, obviously, and the increased sales reflect that, and we are scaling up inventory and production to keep up with that, especially as we get ready for new markets coming up later this month. In person, we're going to attend a new farmers market. There will be more on that in future episodes, so stay tuned for that. And the online store launches later, well, next week. I was gonna say later in the month, but it's next week and we've got a lot of work to do there still. Now, I mentioned something earlier about school was in session and how that, well, how that historically or maybe in our minds seemed to impact the the ending of the farmer's market season, but how else does that impact everything else here on the farm? How does that affect us? Well, it affects us because dad still teaches part-time, and four days a week he will be doing something class related or commuting for approximately four to five hours a day. I mean, he's working about, you know, he's working part-time, so we, you know, just chalk it up to about 20 hours a week, which takes him out of the picture in terms of general day-to-day operations in the kitchen. And at this point, I will be largely self-directed. So he has he's he's tasked me with effectively taking over operations in the kitchen. Right? So that is a big that's a big change. Um I'm not I'm not really intimidated uh by that, but it it it does require some some change in in how I operate, some change in um, you know, most likely the schedule that I keep, the way that I I look at things now. Um and uh I'll just be making some modifications to uh the way I've been operating over the past few months. And um, so you know, today I'll start off by taking inventory and prepping for the week ahead and kind of looking at past notes and past sales and uh just just just identifying past patterns and trends and what we've done and what we need to be doing. So, you know, look at basically what we've got in stock, saleable production right now, what we've got in um in production that's actively fermenting, and then sort of look at all that and look at what our potential needs are, and also keep in mind how we are scaling up with future markets moving forward. So generally at this time of year we are scaling down production, anticipating a slow season, but at the very least, we are going to maintain current productivity levels or possibly even continue scaling up. A lot to think about over the next uh the next few days as I get to rolling solo in there. So that is that's that's that's pretty much it. That's uh that's kind of the market update for the farm and homestead here. Um and tomorrow we are going to discuss the filing system that I began implementing on my new well, my new Ur computer uh this weekend. Okay, so after here's some details on that, just a little teaser. After some dialogue with my brother this weekend, which was awesome by the way, um this is how we live life now. Uh at the farmer's market, my sister showed up with her son, my my nephew, and we got to hang out together and eat kraut, and during the slow times, I got to carry him around and look at signs and you know hang out with other vendors. And and then after my sister left, my brother showed up with his two kids, and they were busy running around and playing on the square, and then they went back to the farm. And by the time we got back, they were down taking a nap, and then Uncle Rob got to play, and we got to go on a walk and nature walk, and all this stuff, you know, lots of playing outside, picking flowers, planting flowers, time spent in the herb garden. Uh, and you know, this is this is how it is now. Um but uh what's what's real nice is my brother who has ended up in the field of IT uh on on the management end of things, but he's still very technically savvy. Uh he's he's helped me modify systems that I began discussing right around this time last year with regard to file naming and organization. You know, uh back dates back to episode number 188 where I talked about file naming and organization. And that was back on September 7th, 2021. And then I kind of touched on this again when I was talking about iPhone file transfer and storage. And a lot of you guys might remember all the dialogue that was going on back in the Telegram group about all of this nonsense. So um shout out to Brian from the LOTS Project for his guidance and counsel on this particular USB storage transfer device that just made everything supremely easy. So uh for a lot of cool tips and life hacks and more interesting stories, check out Brian with the Lots Project. I'll link to link to what he's doing in the show notes because you know, in our little community here, we've got a lot of cool people doing a lot of cool things. And um we are, you know, in large part communicating on Telegram at t.me slash allaround growth. Put that in on any internet browser, and that will allow you to access the group in Telegram. Not even necessary to put it on your phone. So there's no real reason why you shouldn't do that, but we are also on all these other social medias. Check out the show notes for links to everything there. But um, you know, back to this whole file naming and organization, it it it was what we're going to talk about tomorrow is not so much how my brother helped me, but the the the I'll share a little bit about that too and elaborate on that. But the end result is me consolidating well over a dozen hard drives into a single machine, and then I will also discuss the file backup strategies for the short term and the long term with this machine, my parents' computers, and ultimately the building and development of a home network here that will be able to be accessed remotely by my brother that will serve as an external storage location for his files while setting it up in a similar way with ours. I just I I kind of blew it with the teaser there, guys, but uh hey, I'm I'm figuring things out as I go, as we change, and uh you know, um, so stick with me. You guys have stuck with me thus far. I really appreciate it, and I appreciate you sticking with me moving forward, and I appreciate you sharing the show with your social media, with your friends and family, because we are really up to some cool things here, and I I'm I'm very grateful for the opportunity to be able to share it with you in the way that I do now. I'm grateful for your participation in the community that we have on Telegram and beyond. And, you know, if you want to support the farm, the homestead, and everything that's going on here, I would just again encourage you to check out the show notes where you can subscribe to the newsletter and receive some big discounts upon the opening of the online store next week. So, tomorrow, guys, we'll see you where we talk about an update on file naming and organization. And uh, I look forward to it. This is Rob Kaiser, and thank you.