My target market will be local hobby vegetable gardeners. There has been a small-scale seed supplier in the area for the past 5-10 years and I would initially start with interviewing her and identifying some of her trends over the years. She doesn't grow her own seeds that she sells, but she brings in heritage varieties and sells them locally. Another identifier of trends in the area would be to just look at the varieties that are sold in all of the local stores targeting my audience. They bring in a lot of the basics. I think that would be a great place to start. Facebook has become a great tool to create market research. I could start a survey and send it out within the Facebook groups pertaining to different local gardening groups and see what kind of response I get back. Understanding what the customer wants will have a huge impact on what I grow. I would start with that information and plan to grow what the people want. I...
Hi Lisa;
ReplyDeleteYou've done a good job of defining the different components of your expenses for the enterprise budget, and that takes time, so congratulations. Using that approach can help you immensely with understanding which parts of your operation are economically viable, and where changes can be made if you find things aren't economically viable. I recommend these kinds of budgets for many seed and food crops you plan to grow on your farm.
A couple of points: I notice that you valued the cost of your first year carrots at only $100, but I think realistically for all the work you put into growing them in the first year they are worth more than that, so a true accounting of your labour, inputs, etc from growing the first year carrot stecklings would cost you more than that. This affects your overall budget. Something to consider.
The other big point is your positive income flow, again speaking about the example of the carrots, relies on you receiving $1200/kg for the carrot seed and selling 4.9 kilos of it. This is a price you could get if all the carrot seed was sold as individual packets (thus gaining you the most $ for the seed) but it also means you would need to be able to sell all those seed packets. And that is maybe the toughest part of the seed growing! Realistically, without an established seed company with a loyal clientel it will be hard for you to sell that many seed packets. So, I would recommend looking at some different scenarios with your budget, such as selling the carrot seed at wholesale price, or just lowering the quantity you will sell in packets. Maybe you could assume selling 1 kilo of seed in packets. I don't want to burst any bubbles here, just want to help make the budget reflect the realities involved in the challenging process of selling/marketing seed when you first get a business going. :)
I agree with everything that Patrick has said, particularly regarding the ability to sell all of your carrot seed crop in one year as packets. We probably go through 1 kilo of seed of any one particular variety each year and we sell across Canada.
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