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What Market Organizers Look For in a Sourdough Vendor | Episode 58

Jul 30
7 min read

Updated: Aug 13

Listen on Apple Podcasts or watch on YouTube


When you send a farmers market application, you probably think of it as paperwork. The person on the other end is reading it as evidence.


I sat down with Ashley, who organizes the market where I sell every second and fourth Saturday. She gets a pile of applications, especially from sourdough bakers, she recognizes business names, and she can tell which bakers have their systems together before she ever meets them.


Her line stuck with me: if you do not give me enough information, I am going to assume you do not have your stuff straight.


That is a woman with a three month waiting list making a fast decision, and it is very good news for you, because everything she uses to decide is something you can control this week.


Write the application like a business owner

Ashley gets applications from bakers she has watched be consistent at other markets for a year, and she still turns them down when the application is vague.


Here is what she wants to see:

  • Exactly what you sell. Not "sourdough". These are the scones I make, these are the cookies I do, I bring bagels once a month and it will be the fourth market every time.

  • What you do not offer, stated plainly, so she can place you well.

  • Photos of your product. They do not have to be gorgeous, she can fix that.

  • A photo of your setup. This is the one people skip and it is the one she cares most about.

  • Complete sentences. Her words: if you cannot put a full sentence in your application, I am not going to give you the time of day.

The setup photo matters because she is protecting the whole market. Vendors show up with a couple of things on a folding table, sell out in an hour or sell almost nothing, and then sit there frustrated. From the customer's side, a thin table reads as an unfinished market.


And before you send a single question, go look. Ashley puts the same information on the market's Facebook page, its Instagram, the website, and in every email. If you ask her something that is already in all four places, that answer is a no.


How to tell a good market from a bad one before you commit

Ashley's first piece of advice for choosing a market is the same thing I say constantly: know your business.


Markets are not interchangeable. Some are handmade only, some are food-forward, some lean art, some run a hundred and fifty vendors and some run fifteen. A bigger market with more traffic charges a bigger fee for the same five hours, and it will have three other bakers in it.


So do the math before you apply. What do I have to sell in five hours for this to be worth the bake, the drive, and the Saturday? That number decides which markets are even in the running. If you have never run it, start with How to Calculate Your Baking Capacity for Markets and Pre-Orders.


Then read the organizer, because she is the product. Ashley's tells for a well run market:

  • Information arrives before the market, not the morning of.

  • You get timely responses and you know who you are talking to.

  • The market is being promoted publicly, with real posts about the vendors who will be there.

If none of that is happening, you will be sitting in a field waiting for customers who never heard about it.


One more, and it is free: go stand at the location as a shopper first. Look at customer parking, because fifteen minutes of circling makes people arrive annoyed. Look at where vendors park and how far you will haul your bins, since your car is already full of bread. I walk through the rest of that evaluation in How to Choose the Right Farmers Market for Your Microbakery.


Give it three months, and go every single time

This is where I watch bakers give up too early. They try a market once, sales are soft, and they never go back.


Ashley's rule is three months minimum, attending every date. Traffic swings market to market for reasons nobody can explain, so one Saturday tells you nothing and three months of Saturdays tells you the pattern.


The bigger reason is that customers are creatures of habit. Somebody buys your bread, likes it, and comes back looking for you. If you are not there, they buy someone else's, and you have done the work of winning them and handed away the repeat business.


Bring the right amount of bread

There is a wide gray area between not enough product and too much, and Ashley watches vendors miss in both directions. She talked a brand new cookie vendor down from hundreds of cookies for her first market, because hauling all of that home unsold is discouraging in a way that ends businesses.


Start smaller and step up. Sell 50 loaves, notice that people were still coming to your tent looking for bread, and bring 55 next time, then 60. Once you reach the top of what sells, add a bagel or a scone instead of adding more volume.


And selling out is not a failure! An empty table at the end of the day with a sold out sign creates urgency, and it hands you the best conversation of the day: this is what I make, come earlier next time.


Placement is on purpose

If your organizer moves you to the back of the market, she is probably not punishing you. Ashley moved me to the back deliberately, because she had watched customers park, walk straight to my tent, buy bread, and leave. Putting me at the far end makes them walk the whole market to find me, which helps every vendor in between.


She also places similar businesses next to each other on purpose. When your bread sits next to another baker whose products are genuinely different, customers see the difference right there and buy from both, because they know they will not get it if they keep walking. She pairs complements too, jelly and honey beside bread.


So when someone says you are right next to your competition, you get to explain the strategy. And if a placement genuinely does not work for you, say so once, kindly, and let her tell you what she can do.


You have to actually sell

Ashley has watched a vendor sit in his chair for an entire market and never stand up.


Being at a market is a sales job for five hours, and if you are not a natural you need preparation more than charisma. Write down two or three talking points about your bread and use them all day, because you will say the same sentences over and over anyway. Be ready to answer real questions about ingredients and process.


This matters especially for home bakers. Ashley eavesdrops on shoppers, and she hears older customers who are genuinely uneasy about buying food made in someone's house. A tidy, organized, well stocked booth answers that worry before anyone has to ask. There is more on that in How to Set Up a Farmers Market Booth That Sells.


If you are not ready for a five hour market yet, do a smaller rep first. Set up at your church, your kid's school, or a gym or boutique that wants foot traffic, and you can even offer the owner twenty dollars an hour for the space. An hour in front of strangers will teach you more than another month of planning.


Two small things that are not small. Weigh down your tent legs before you do anything else, because the little discs that come with a canopy will not hold in real wind and one gust can wipe out your entire bake. And pay your vendor fee when it is due, because Ashley lost real money on vendors who sat on invoices watching the weather, and organizers remember.


If you are already a market regular

For the baker who has a market dialed in, the question worth asking is whether this one is still earning its Saturday.


Pull your last six market dates, calculate revenue per market, then subtract your vendor fee and the cost of your ingredients. Look at the trend, not the best day. Then ask whether a bigger market with a steeper fee would clear more after costs, and whether you are leaving money on the table by bringing the same amount every time.


Ashley builds her waitlist from vendors who show up, communicate, and bring a table worth photographing. Be that vendor and you get first call when a space opens.


Final thoughts

What I keep coming back to from this conversation is how much of it is inside your control. Foot traffic and weather are not. A specific application, a photo of your setup, showing up every single date, weights on your tent legs, and paying your fee on time all are.


Do those and you stop being one of a stack of applications. You become the vendor she is trying to keep.


Cheering you on,


Caroline


Keep going

If markets are part of your plan this year, these three will get you the rest of the way.


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