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How to Sell Sourdough at Farmers Markets: A Starter Guide | Episode 7

  • Nov 12, 2024
  • 8 min read

Updated: 3 days ago

Listen on Apple Podcasts


Farmers markets are the question I get asked about more than almost anything else. How do you get in, how much do you bring, and what happens if nobody buys anything.


A market is one of the fastest ways to get in front of people who will never find you on social media. It is also a real operational commitment, a couple of full baking days plus a very early Saturday, so it is worth choosing carefully instead of signing up for the first one that says yes.


Here is the whole process, from picking a market to what lives in the bag behind your table.


Step one: find the right market, because they are not all the same

Some markets are a great fit for a sourdough microbakery and some will never sell you a loaf. The crowd, the vendor mix, and the reason people show up all matter.


Start with research. Search Facebook and Instagram, try Nextdoor, and ask friends who shop locally, because they often know about markets you have never heard of and can tell you the feel of each one. Google works too, with searches like local vendor markets or farmers markets near me. LocalHarvest.org has a database worth a look, though I have found it is often out of date. Most markets also have an active Facebook or Instagram page, so use those to get a sense of the vibe.


Then go visit in person, and pay attention to more than the crowd size:

  • What kinds of vendors are there? Is it food focused or mostly crafts?

  • Are the vendors talking to each other and having a good time, or sitting there scrolling their phones?

  • Are people carrying bags full of produce and artisan goods, or just wandering and browsing?

  • Are there other bakers, and are they selling sourdough?

That last one is not the dealbreaker most people assume. There is at least one other sourdough baker at my main market and we both sell out every week. We have become friends, and we find each other after we sell out to talk shop. Our products are a little different and our customer bases are different, so we really do not infringe on each other. There are enough people who need bread to support both of us.


Ask around, too. Grab a business card from a couple of the friendliest vendors and ask about their experience. Are sales steady? Is the market well organized? Are the coordinators easy to reach? That firsthand information is worth more than anything on the market's website.


Then look hard at logistics. How far is it from your house, when can you set up and tear down, is there parking, and how far will you haul everything from your car to your booth? Those are not small details at six in the morning with a car full of bread.


Step two: reach out to the organizer

Most markets list contact information on their website or social media. I usually just send a Facebook message, or an email if I can find the address.


Pay attention to how that goes. If the contact information is impossible to track down, or there is no clear process for applying, that disorganization is a real signal about what selling there will be like.


You will usually fill out an online application. Be specific about what you sell, because organizers use that to manage overlap between vendors and may ask you to focus on certain products. You will often be asked for photos, so take a couple of well-lit shots of your products. Do not agonize over it.


Read the market guidelines carefully and ask questions if anything is unclear. Good markets will tell you where to park after setup, when you can arrive, where your booth is, whether you have to stay until closing if you sell out, and whether there are rules like a white tent.


You will almost always pay a vendor fee, and amounts vary a lot. My rule of thumb is that I will not join a market if the fee is over fifty dollars, but that is a decision you get to make based on your own numbers.


Ask about expected foot traffic while you are at it. An established market should have a decent estimate. A brand new market or a one-off will almost certainly be slower, so plan accordingly.


Step three: decide how much to bring

This is the balancing act, and it takes a few markets to dial in.


Start small. Bring as much as you comfortably can bake at your current capacity, plus a few small items like cookies and scones. Your first markets will probably land somewhere between twelve and thirty loaves.


If you have a foot traffic estimate, the common rule of thumb is to bring about ten percent of it. If the organizers expect three hundred people, that is thirty loaves. Bring fewer than that your first time so you can see how it goes. I go through this math in more depth in Calculating Your Capacity for Markets and Pre-Orders in Your Sourdough Microbakery.


And please build the schedule so you get a good night's sleep before the market. If the plan has you baking all night, scale back. Nobody sells well running on three hours.


Bring a mix. A couple of your best sellers, or the ones you most love to make if you do not know your best sellers yet. Something versatile like a plain sourdough and a sandwich loaf. One or two experimental flavors. Then some small items like rolls, crackers, cookies, or scones.


Quality over quantity, always. A smaller table of excellent bread beats a big table of things you rushed.


Step four: track what actually sells

Keep records of what you bring and what you sell, every single market. This is the data that tells you what to bake next time.


Watch for the items that vanish in the first hour and the ones still sitting there at noon. Bring more of the first and fewer of the second. If you come home with a lot of unsold bread, scale back.


Pen and paper works, but I recommend something digital. I use Square, which records every sale and takes card payments, and I enter cash sales in it too so I have one complete record. It is a free app that charges card processing fees per transaction, and you do not even need a reader, because tap to pay on your phone lets people tap a card or their Apple wallet. Get set up to take cards one way or another, because fewer and fewer people carry cash and no card reader means lost sales.


Step five: plan the week backward from market day

Baking is the biggest job by far, and multiple days go into it. Planning is what keeps it from wrecking your week.


My market is Saturday morning, so I reverse engineer everything from there. Friday is my big day, starting mid-morning so everything is baked and cooled in time to package Friday evening and load the car Saturday. That makes Wednesday and Thursday my dough days, and Tuesday I do a little prep, sometimes mixing cookie dough or scones that can be frozen and baked Friday. Write yours out the same way, backward from the moment your booth opens.


Step six: set up a booth that looks like a business

For an outdoor market you will need a ten by ten canopy tent, a table or two, a tablecloth, and a chair. Remember the chair.


Add signage even for your first market, because it does more for how professional you look than almost anything else. I had a banner made at Walgreens, two feet by six feet, spanning the back of my canopy and hung with bungee cords. Walgreens usually has discount codes, and I found one for fifty percent off and got mine printed for about twenty dollars.


You do not need it perfect the first time. You do need it uncluttered and arranged so your bread is the thing people see. Lift some items up on a crate, a shelf, or even a cooling rack to create height, which makes the whole table easier to shop. There is a whole episode on booth setup in The Market Series, Part 3: How to Make Your Booth Stand Out.


Bring cash to make change, especially small bills. I tally up after every market and keep about forty to fifty dollars in small bills in the cash box for next time. Missing a sale because you cannot break a twenty is an annoying way to lose money. A Venmo business account is worth setting up too, with the QR code printed so people can scan it.


Samples are worth it at a brand new market where nobody has tasted your bread. Check your state's cottage food rules first, since some states restrict samples or require specific packaging. I bring samples when I am new somewhere and skip them at my main market, where I already have a large regular customer base.


Step seven: talk to people

This is the part that turns a market into a customer base.


Be friendly and approachable. Make eye contact and greet people walking by. Do not hit anyone with a sales pitch, just leave space for them to come in and then ask how they are doing, or whether they have tried sourdough before.


The face to face relationships are my favorite part of markets. I have regulars whose names and faces I know and whose orders I can predict, and they request menu items. Often a regular is standing in my booth when someone new walks up, and my regular starts selling my bread for me. That is word of mouth marketing you cannot buy.


Step eight: have a backup plan

Bring extra supplies. My bag always has bungee cords, scissors, a marker, baby wipes, and a bag for trash. Bring snacks and water too. I am always solo, and some days the traffic is steady enough that I cannot leave my booth to find food.


Then decide ahead of time what happens if you do not sell out, because bad weather and slow days happen to everyone. My plan is to put the leftovers out on my covered porch and post in my neighborhood group calling it a flash sale, pay what you can and take what you want. It is usually gone within a couple of hours, and anything left goes to a local organization. Having that plan is exactly why a slow market does not rattle me.


If you are already selling and want to make markets more profitable

Once you have a few markets behind you, the work shifts from showing up to optimizing.


Pull your sales records and put revenue per market next to your real costs: vendor fee, ingredients, packaging, and the hours you spent baking and standing there. Some markets are worth their fee and some are not, and the numbers will tell you which.


Watch seasonality too. Depending on where you are, summer heat can slow things down and fall picks back up, winter can be slow or shut down entirely, and holiday markets often pull far more traffic than a regular week. Plan bigger inventory for the holidays and smaller for the slow stretches instead of baking the same amount every time.


Final thoughts

Start small, stay inside your capacity, keep records, and let each market make the next one better. The first one is always the hardest and the second one is easier, and after a handful of reps the whole thing starts to feel routine.


Markets are genuinely fun. You will meet your neighbors, hear exactly what they want, and come home with a fuller picture of your own business than a month of scrolling could ever give you. I am excited for you!


Cheering you on,


Caroline


Keep going

There is a lot more on markets in the library, so start here.


Links to things you might like!

 
 
 

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