What do you know about Farmers Markets

Here in Montana, the regulations are a tangled maze. The state sanitarian has regulations, the county sanitarians "interpret" those regulations plus add their own, and each market imposes its own rules.

To avoid problems, veggies have to be "unprocessed" -- not cut or shelled or whatever; I've never had a straight answer on washing them!

Bread and jams/jellies can be made at home with a signed sanitary certificate (these were ok'd by state law), but anything else has to be processed in a certified kitchen with the proper license. I can't even dry and sell tomatoes or garlic without that hassle -- because I have to cut them first.

I don't yet know about selling eggs, but I hope to find out next summer.

I have looked into the farmers markets but decided not to pursue them. All of them had high fees and required that you stay at the market all day from half an hour before opening to half an hour after closing. If I run out of stuff to sell that would be a horrid waste of my time sitting around all day. The people managing the farmers markets were also very egotistical, controlling and arrogant. I didn't like their attitudes.

Simple solution - I don't participate. I already sell all we can directly without dealing with their hassle or fees. They are also a much smaller market. In the time that it would take to be there all day we can do our full delivery route to a large number of stores, restaurants and individuals.

The farmers market is a good idea but the actual implementation seems to have issues.

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SugarMtnFarm.com -- Pastured Pigs, Poultry, Sheep, Dogs and Kids

I take it you are looking for more input. Here is some of what I know:

1. In Manitoba, Farmers Markets cannot sell eggs or dairy at all.
2. Meats can be sold, but need to be frozen, and temp maintained at correct level.
3. Food cooked on site (burgers, hot dogs, etc.) has to comply with food handling standards
4. Processed food like jams, jellies, perogies, etc. must be prepared in a commercially licensed kitchen. Vendors can often rent such kitchen space from local churches, legions, community halls are an affordable rate.

5. Fees vary quite a bit from market to market.

6. I just did an economic impact study on farmers markets here. For every $1 spent at the market, $0.25 - $0.50 is spent at surrounding businesses.

7. When you take direct, indirect and induced impacts into account, you can use a multiplier of 3 to assess the impact of markets. So, for every $1 million in farmers market sales, there is $3 million in economic activity generated. They would be a good place to target some stimulus dollars...

Bottom line, farmers markets are good for the local economy.