Agriculture Reference
In-Depth Information
to reach them. An example of this is The Garlic Farm on the Isle of Wight in
the UK and our own Chestnut Brae in Nannup in Western Australia which
specializes in sweet chestnuts.
4
What competition is there to your retail offer?
Competition comes in a number of different forms and needs to be ana-
lysed. Do not look on competition as a reason not to open a store, but be
aware of what competition is out there. It will include:
•
Online retailers: whether that be Amazon Fresh or a local supermarket,
consumers will buy food online and the trend is increasing to buy more
food online.
•
Supermarkets: consumers who shop at a farm shop will have to visit a
supermarket occasionally to purchase other produce.
•
Other farm shops: mystery-shop them and identify their strengths and
weaknesses. Do not copy them, but try and complement them.
•
Farmers' markets: these are competition, but also an opportunity for
your farm shop to have a 'pop up' location at the market to promote the
farm shop.
Find the gaps in the marketplace and aim to fill them with your unique
offer.
5
What can and should the farm shop sell?
The golden rule of retailing is that 80% of sales comes from 20% of the
product range. This is as true in farm retailing as any other type of retailing
business. It is also true that at least 80% of the produce sold should be
home or locally grown in a genuine farm shop. This is always a contentious
issue. Some consumers expect a farm shop to be a purist and have 100%
home-grown produce. Other consumers want to do their weekly shop at
a farm shop without going to a supermarket for perishable produce and
would expect, for example, bananas to be sold in many UK farm shops,
knowing they have not been grown locally.
What do you have to sell and what can you add to the offer to increase
customer count and sales? This will vary with location. Farmers have intro-
duced butchers, fish counters, bakeries and coffee shops to add to the offer
in the farm shop and ensure that they can attract the consumer they need.
Experience Renewal Solutions Inc.
2
asked farm retailers in Ontario what
percentage of food retailed was from the farm; the results were:
•
11% of farm shops sold 100% farm-grown produce;
•
48% of farm shops sold
75-
99% farm-grown produce;
•
23% of farm shops sold
50-
74% of farm-grown produce;
