Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs

Selling Directly to Consumers

The Direct Farm Marketing Business Resources publication provides the following information resources for farmers who sell or wish to sell directly to consumers:

• Six case studies of farmers who sell direct to the consumer through a variety of market channels (e.g. On farm Market, Farmers Markets, festivals and events etc.) explore key problems faced by the farmers and their successes and challenges in addressing these issues.
• Information sheets addressing the importance and uses of Business Intelligence and Market Research, business use of Social Media, product pricing issues and selecting the right marketing channel.
• Nine Direct Farm Marketing best management practices are summarized from the case studies, interviews with farmers and other research.
• Example templates of log sheets that can be used to gather key information for business decisions.

The Direct Farm Marketing Business Resources publication is available as a free downloadable PDF and along with the three Excel based margin calculators listed below.

Direct Farm Marketing Margin Calculators

• The Performance Analysis by Marketing Channel spreadsheet allows you to calculate or compare margins across six distinct market channels:
  • Roadside stand
  • On-farm market
  • Pick your own/U-pick
  • Farmers' market
  • Community Supported Agriculture
  • Online store/delivery service
• The On-Farm Processing Recipe Based Costing Tool allows you to analyze the impact of changes in recipe, ingredient costs or packaging size on product margin.
• The Cost of Meat Processing Tool will allow users to calculate the cost of meat processing per meat product by summarizing the costs of animal transport, slaughter, further processing into cuts transport cost for meat pickup.

These margin calculators allow producers to compare and calculate their margins for selling directly to consumers.

Also check out the Specialty Cropportunities Business Planning and Marketing