INTERESTED IN STARTING A FARMER'S MARKET

Here's some advice based on our experience

From a FAQ answered by Tiffany Tyler

I'm not sure how much homework you have done about what it takes to start a farmer's market in the city of Houston, but let me give you a brief rundown of what you are looking at in terms of startup costs and effort. This is not a simple thing to do, and it can be EXTREMELY expensive to start up.

• The required permits from the state department of agriculture (about $250 a year) require the signature of 2 actual farmers who are willing to put their names on the license and commit to be there each market. So before you can pull a permit, you have to have at least 2 farmers committed to being there and signing the application
  
  
• The required permits from the city of Houston health department will run you about another $200 a year. That's not counting whatever expense it takes to bring a location on your property up to code to hold a market.
  
  
• a professional market manager is pretty much required to keep things running. Anyone who has actual experience doing this won't work for less than $20 an hour, and in our experience it is a 40 hour a week job (with additional support) for the first 2 years, and then no fewer than 30 hours a week after that. A less experienced manager might work for as little as $15 an hour, but it will take them longer to make things work.
  
  
• Advertising expenses can run the gamut. Farmers / other vendors need to be able to clear at least $500 each per week in order to stay, and larger farmers won't come for takes of less than $1500 a day. That takes a lot of foot traffic, and not only lookers but BUYERS.
  
  
• Shoppers take a long time to develop a shopping habit. Your location will be tough- folks aren't used to being out of their cars unless they are inside the mall. The first 2 years in any location will be a struggle, and in a challenged location, you will have to be willing to pay for the losses for years beyond that.

If you are interested in working up a more complete picture of how your location might or might not work as a market, and a presentation-ready document mapping out the route to a successful market in Houston, we would be happy to create a report specific to your location, based on our experience and expertise opening Green Market downtown and working with local farmers in Houston for the last 9 years.

We structure that kind of advice as a consulting agreement, because as a small not-for-profit with 2 employees and about 20 volunteers running our business, we have to be able to cover our costs for more in-depth advice. I'd estimate that we could work something up for you for about $750 that would give you enough information to let you make an informed decision about your options. We do have experience doing this type of consulting, and I'm happy to produce a reference contact if you want to talk further about this kind of arrangement.

The other potential route to farm fresh produce for your area would be for you to sponsor a partner co-op, which could bring pre-ordered produce into your community. This is distinctly different from a farmer's market in terms of permitting (and running), but that is something that we at Central City do a great deal of, and we would be happy to have you come visit us on a Wednesday at our premises in Montrose to explain what that is about and how it could work.

I hope this gives you enough information to help you understand how to get to a decision. We'd be happy to help in any way that we can, but as I mentioned above, we are a tiny organization that relies on primarily volunteer labor to get things done, so we have to be very clear about our boundaries around giving advice for free.

Have more questions? Contact partners@centralcityco-op.com.

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