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Selling Baked Goods at Farmers Market

Selling baked goods at a farmers market is a great way to access an additional revenue stream, get out in the open air, meet new people, and liven up your home-based bakery, website, or store. Perhaps most importantly, it is an excellent way to access new customers, open up new buying demographics and drive fresh and enthusiastic traffic to your home baking business. If you're wondering how to promote a home baking business, selling at farmers market might be our number one tip.

In this brief guide, we will discuss what you need to know to get started setting up and getting the most out of your farmers market store. We will cover the best baked goods to sell from home, how to sell baked goods from home, selling at a farmers market, and tips to make your farmers market bakery a success.

Promote Your Bakery by Selling Baked Goods at Farmers Market

Most shoppers at farmers markets are out for the experience as well as for the fresh produce and unique offers some sellers bring with them. That being the case, the best sellers at farmers markets are the ones that open up new avenues of enjoyment to their buyers. By using your presence at the market to show off unique and interesting products, you can draw in satisfied buyers to your home-based online store or brick-and-mortar shop. This is the way the most successful farmers market vendors work. They draw in a fun-loving crowd that has a proven willingness to go out of their way for a good time.

The Best Baked Goods to Sell From Home

Regardless of where you sell your wares, the most profitable baked goods are almost unchanging over time and venue. The one factor that determines which baked goods are best for which venue is the shelf life of the item. The less personal the venue, the more shelf life it needs. In short, you won't be selling much hot fruit pie over the Internet, but you may sell a great deal of it at your farmers market stand.

That being said, long shelf life items will serve you well. Shoppers who want the best experience will be willing to arrive at the time and place where a fresh baked fruit pie will be best served. Our research shows that the most sustainable, and most profitable baked goods to sell at a farmers market are as follows:

All of these items are very amenable to being made amenable to long shelf life. They can also be easily made fresh and served in person. This means, you now have a golden list of the top baked goods to sell in any venue.

How to Sell Baked Goods From Home

For a start, you have got to understand that selling food from home places you under the regulatory umbrella known as cottage food law. Each state has rules and regulations regarding what can and what cannot be made and sold from home, as well as a set of regulations about how these foods must be made and kept.

You will need to curate and maintain a kitchen that meets the sanitary standards of your state. You can find all these rules and regulations laid out clearly on your state government website. There, you will find everything you need to set up a home-based baked goods business.

You will also find information on all of the pertinent licensing you will need to do business under the business model you intend to establish. Our one greatest point of advice here is to be ready and willing to alter your chosen business model based on your local regulations. These will help you answer questions like "Where can I sell my baked goods," and "How must I prepare certain types of cottage food items."

Selling at a Farmers Market

Finally, we think you will find that selling food at a farmers market is the perfect companion to selling baked foods online. If your overarching quandary is, where to sell baked goods online, the best answer based on current cultural and market conditions is a mixture of farmers markets and through an online sales portal.

In conclusion, keep in mind that cottage food laws may change. The best foods to sell at a farmers market might be the second best next season. What's more, the Internet is accelerating change in both in-person and online sales. What that means for you is that you need to remain agile, be willing and able to change gears as the needs, expectations, and interests of your audience shift. As long as you maintain regulatory compliance and keep your finger on the pulse of the market, you are very likely to do well and have a wonderful time.

Selling at a farmers market gets your business in front of a whole new category of customers. Learn how to market your bakery business at the market today.

Heather Brookshire

The Cake Whisperer

5/5

My business would not be the same without my Castiron website! It is an easy setup with lots of customization and tons of support! I am so glad I set up my shop last year before the holidays — it really helped increase my sales!

Amanda McMonigle

The Whimsical Cookie

5/5

Castiron provides me a professional site to my customers increasing my credibility and value while giving me the tools to effectively market and manage my business in an easy, user-friendly manner.

Kim Sims

Wesley's Treats Hallie's Sweets

5/5

Castiron has made my cottage bakery shine, and my business easy to manage. As a platform they care about my business as much as I do.

Katie Maschoff

Mill City Cooking Company

5/5

Before Castiron, I was taking orders really manually, through emails or texts or Facebook. Now I can send customers straight to my website, and I don’t have to worry about missing any details.

Daniella Smith

Oso Good Clean Eats

5/5

I couldn't run my business without the Castiron platform. It made it so easy to get my shop up and running — it truly removed a massive barrier to me getting started!

Ali Serpe

Kultured Kombucha

5/5

I realized that the barrier of having to DM or text me to order was holding a lot of potential customers back.

Now that I have a professional website and a simple ecommerce checkout, I'm seeing a huge increase in new customers and they appreciate how easy Castiron makes ordering.

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Food entrepreneurs, this is your moment. Your community is more and more conscious about what they buy and where it is from. They want food made with love. With ingredients they can pronounce. And they want to support their community while doing it.

Castiron is the best fit for your food business because we're not a one-size-fits-all tool. Selling local food is different from pre-packaged warehouse products. Whether you sell cooking classes, need local pick up, utilize pre-sales to plan inventory, or need a fully custom order form — we got you.

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