Harvesting Maine’s New Wholesale Opportunities - Free Workshops for Farmers

Farmers!

How can wholesale fit with your farm? Are you curious about wholesaling your harvest for the first time? Are you an experienced wholesaler wanting to increase your sales or streamline your operation?

From buying clubs to supermarkets accounts, the surge in demand for locally grown products invites new wholesaling opportunities for Maine farmers during a time when the prices of foods “from away” have reached historical highs. Consumers want to buy locally grown.

But wholesaling can present significant challenges and risks that you might be unprepared for.

Harvesting Maine’s New Wholesale Opportunities is a free workshop that will help you decide how and when to add wholesale to your operation. There will be plenty of discussion - you’ll have the time to crunch some numbers relevant to your farm and use the tools you’ll need to continue working when you return home.

Your farm will receive a free copy of Family Farmed’s 300-page ‘Wholesale Success: A Farmer’s Guide to Food Safety, Selling, Postharvest Handling, and Packing Produce’. After your session you can follow up with specialists throughout your upcoming growing season - and apply to attend a free 2-day intensive (Fall 2015) where you’ll dig even deeper into your 2016 farm plan.

During Harvesting Maine’s New Wholesale Opportunities we’ll help your farm with:

• Figuring your costs, pricing for profit, and calculating your break-even points,
• Integrating wholesale into your overall farm plan,
• Understanding and implementing food safety requirements,
• Plugging into distribution options, and
• Creating and maintaining relationships with wholesale customers.

Workshop Locations. Choose from four sessions around the state:

• Southern Maine: Lewiston/Auburn at Bates College. Saturday, February 7, 8:00am-5:00pm / Snow day Sunday, February 8
• Mid-Maine: Belfast at Hutchinson Center. Saturday, February 21, 8:00am-5:00pm / Snow day Sunday, February 22
• Northern Maine: Presque Isle. Saturday, February 28, 8:00am-5:00pm / Snow day Sunday March 1st
• Downeast: Machias at Machias Savings Bank Community Room. Saturday, March 7, 8:00am-5:00pm / Snow Day Sunday, March 8

Workshop Costs. These workshops are offered free of charge. Manuals and bag lunches are provided. Preregistration is required.

How to Apply: These are small-group sessions. Apply now!

• Apply online (http://tinyurl.com/o33w4v5) no later than the Monday prior to each session. Space is limited. Applicants will be contacted and asked to fill out some additional information ahead of time to confirm their commitment to attending.
• Download a paper application, fill out and mail to Maine Farmland Trust, attn: Elizabeth Sprague, 97 Main St. Belfast, ME 04915.
• Still got questions?: Phone Jed Beach at 207-390-0614.

Harvesting Maine’s New Wholesale Opportunities is a collaboration of Maine Farmland Trust, MOFGA, CEI, Farm to Institution New England, Cultivating Community, Environment Maine, and the Legal Hub of Conservation Law Foundation.