Marketing Native, New, and Unfamiliar Culinary Plants: Sample Marketing Plan and Tools for Pineberries, Groundnuts, and Other New and Unique Crops

Progress report for FNC24-1424

FNC24-1424 (project overview)
Project Type: Farmer/Rancher
Funds awarded in 2024: $15,000.00
Projected End Date: 02/15/2026
Grant Recipient: Green Garden Foraging, LLC
Region: North Central
State: Michigan
Project Coordinator:
Darla Kroft
Email
Green Garden Foraging, LLC
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Project Information

Description of operation:

Green Garden Foraging, LLC, brings forgotten or unfamiliar produce to the marketplace in an effort to develop a more sustainable and diverse array of both garden and market crops. To achieve this goal, underutilized plants (such as sunchokes and purslane), native plants (such as groundnuts and ramps), uncommon crops (such as yacon and pineberries) are being grown and gradually offered to the local marketplace.

Marketing this type of produce is quite challenging and time consuming. From reading past SARE projects, it appears that I am not the only farmer with this challenge and I thought that doing an in-depth marketing plan would help not only myself but other farmers who are looking to market more unusual but more environmentally friendly foodstuff.

My growing area is located at the Cooperative at Dawn Farm (CaDF), which is owned by Dawn Farm in Ypsilanti, Michigan. The entire area consists of 64 acres of repurposed farmland. Of that acreage, I farm about 2324 square foot that is broken up into various growing areas such as traditional garden rows, raised beds, containers (both aquatic and soil) and hoop house space.

Personally, I come from a farming and gardening family. My paternal grandfather and dad were both farmers. Both sides of my family grew large gardens with great soil and kid-power. I took agricultural classes in a rural farming community high school. After leaving college, I moved to Michigan and went to work at an outdoor education center where I taught equestrian and domestic animal sciences for 13 years. After which, I worked in corporate administration. Upon the company’s closure, I was hired at the University of Michigan (UM) in 2009, where I started in research administration. I still work there but have been working in more of a project management and general support role.

I started my culinary herb garden while working at home during COVID when I rediscovered “soil tranquility”. After quickly outgrowing my home garden, I moved my plants to the CaDF. There I discovered foraged food upon taking food forest walks while accompanying one of the CaDF's permaculturists. Amazed at the availability of environmental low-impact foodstuff, I made it a personal mission to (re)introduce more sustainable foods to the marketplace. This proposal will address the challenges I have encountered in marketing these unique crops.

Summary:

Specialty farmers who are (re)introducing new and unfamiliar foodstuff to the market face marketing challenges that farmers who produce traditional products do not face. These challenges include product unfamiliarity and usage uncertainty. For example, a customer is familiar with a potato but not with the more nutritious and flavorful groundnut. A customer walks into a market and knows exactly what a potato is and what they are going to do with it; thus, making a quick purchasing decision. From personal experience, this quick purchasing decision doesn’t happen when something as  uncommon as groundnuts are available for purchase. It takes considerable effort to inform the customer about the item, such as use, growing requirements, nutrition, and move them from general interest to buying.

Through preliminary research, specialty farmers are still using traditional marketing methods to market untraditional produce. As foraged foodstuff comes to market and unfamiliar foodstuffs are sought by both individual and retail customers, it seems that it is time to conduct market research into how to market uncommon produce. The outcome of the market research is to create a more encompassing set of marketing tools designed to address the unique challenges faced by specialty farmers. 

2024 Update: The preliminary research observations were confirmed. At the four farm markets attended this year, there were two farmers selling underutilized culinary produce: purslane and persimmons. Each item at the different booths had the same signage and information as the traditional produce that were being sold. These products were also mixed in with the regular traditional crops. They did sell produce but the customers had to either be familiar with the uncommon produce or they had an adventurous nature.

Project Objectives:

Solution

Below are the steps that will be taken to develop tools to help farmers market unfamiliar and potentially more sustainable
produce.

  1. Identify unusual crop marketing challenges by:
    • Reviewing various marketing resources but concentrating on SARE projects that focus on marketing uncommon food crops
      (edible weeds, edible flowers, etc.)

    • Surveying farmers and nursery representatives about their experiences in marketing unfamiliar produce.
      • 2024 Update: For this project, it has been rather challenging to survey farmers via online and paper methods. So for the upcoming year, farmers will be interviewed either by phone or in person. Interviews have started.
    • Conduct focus groups to help further identify the marketing challenges and evaluate solutions. 
      •  2024 Update: Names of potential focus group members were collected at the Fall 2024 farm markets that were attended in October but the potential participants made a point to say that they could not attend a focus group during the holidays. There is a tentative focus group for general customers planned for Spring 2025. 
    • Interviewing market representatives and retailers to document their concerns on carrying uncommon produce.
      • 2024 Update: This is the other market segment that will be personally interviewed. This has been started. 
    • Surveying prospective customers to help identify their concerns in purchasing unfamiliar produce.
      • 2024 Update: The first survey attempt was using a paper form supported by an online version. This did not work as it took too long to complete. The second attempt involved handing out specially designed business cards with QR codes leading to online surveys. This was also not successful as only 2 responses were gathered from over 50 cards that were handed out. The third attempt will be to integrate feedback questions into the evolving product display, hand out notecard surveys at the events, and take informal polls at speaking events and farm markets. Thus far the third attempt has yielded the best returns for obtaining market data.
    • Recording purchasing measurements such as:
      • Tracking customer conversion, which is defined as the time it takes for a customer to move from interest to purchase.
        • 2024 Update: From preliminary data, it takes an average of 5 minutes per customer to move a customer from interest to purchasing. They have so many questions about the item from what it is to growing to preparing it. Just as a casual observation, one traditional vendor at a farm market was selling quite well just sitting back in her booth and answering an occasional customer question. While I was having to continuously engage and educate customers on the various items at our booth. From this observation, something engaging to pull people into the booth space and something that conveys important information quickly needs to be developed.
      • Recording the number of browsers vs. purchasers visiting the farm market booth.
        • 2024 Update: From preliminary data it takes 3 minutes for a person to move from curiosity marked by coming into the booth space to deciding not to purchase. However, there is still these 3 minutes of answering questions that need to be addressed. Preliminary data suggests roughly a third (33%) of customers move from browser to purchaser. Hopefully, conversion will be faster and more successful with the various information aids that are being developed and booth space redesign. 
      • Logging the time it takes for a customer to make a decision regardless of decision made.
        • 2024 Update: From preliminary data, it takes an average about 4 minutes for a person to make a decision on whether to buy or not to buy. 
      • Utilizing other evaluation methods suggested by the Marketing Consultant.
        • 2024 Update: The Marketing Consultant added great insight into the formation of the surveys. Also, she is providing great insight and suggestions on how to redesign the farm market booth and types of tools that need to be developed. With her guidance a solid marketing plan outline has been created and is being filled in with helpful marketing advice for farmers who want to enter this niche market. Working Draft of Marketing Plan - Table of Contents
  2. Investigate solutions to address the challenges identified above by:
    • Analyzing data from all collection methods to create a marketing story of what is and is not working when it comes to marketing novel produce.
      • 2024 Update: This is still ongoing. More customer data is needed. 
    • Identifying marketing tools and methods needed to address the documented challenges.
      • 2024 Update: Various marketing tools have been identified and are being modified for use: 1) A pertinent SWOT analysis has been uncovered in the research phase and will be modified to be used for practical use, 2) A plant label has been redesigned in order to display as much pertinent information as possible to the customer about growing in hopes of reducing customer conversion time, 3) Do's and Don'ts checklist of how to sell unique culinary plants at a Farm Market, and 4) A customer decision pyramid is under development to help farmers understand the decision making process of selling these underutilized crops.
  3. Create a marketing plan and supporting tools addressing the identified challenges.
    • 2024 Update: The marketing plan outline has been created with the help of the Marketing Consultant. Information is being filled in as data is made available. 
  4. Test, evaluate and revise the newly created marketing plan and tools by:
    • Implementing the new marketing plan and tools.
    • Collecting data by using the same methods utilized in Step 1.
    • Evaluating the new plan and tools by analyzing data from all collection methods.
    • Revise the marketing plan and tools based upon the evaluative outcome.
    • 2024 Update: All of the steps outlined directly above are ongoing. 

Four crops (listed below) will be used to run two (pre-and post-marking plan implementation) marketing evaluations. (Steps 1 and 4 above).

  • Chocolate mint as it quickly appeals to customers but not purchased because potential customers don’t know what to do with it. However, it requires no additional resources1 to produce.
  • Pineberries as they are new to the market and readily marketable as a strawberry hybrid but requires no additional
    environmental resources1 to grow.
  • Groundnuts as they have excellent product research data already available and are grown commercially in Japan but not
    here. They are also native plants requiring no additional resources1.
  • Yacon as it is new to the market possessing little customer familiarity. Very limited resources1 are needed to
    grow a plant that produces about 15 pounds of edible tubers (combination of online sources).
  • 2024 Update: Sunchokes (Jerusalem artichoke) were added to the list as a way to have at least four types of plants to sell as yacons were unable for the first two farm markets. See Project Timeline below for further details. However, adding sunchokes to the sale mix surfaced the problem of how to address the assertive growing nature of sunchokes and other natives. Chocolate mint also touches on this concern but it can be moved to a container. Sunchokes could possibly be grown in containers but they are a more of an in-ground crop. Farmers really need to be prepared to address this if they want to grow native edibles to sell. To address this concern, sunchokes are being added to the mix and a marketing tool on how to sell native plants as culinary plants will be created. 

A revised project timeline (Revised Timeline) has been attached displaying when various tasks will be conducted.

  • 2024 Update: A new timeline had to be created due to the inability to start selling plants in Spring 2024. In early March 2024, the CaDF Board asked that Green Garden Foraging plants be moved to a different location on the property with full knowledge that the move would take a considerable amount of effort as the grower had one arm in a cast. Overall, the move was a great idea as it would consolidate the plants into one space but the timing of the move prohibited the necessary plant propagation, growth time and space that was needed in order to be ready for spring farm markets. It also led to crop loss and diminished yield as root crops such as yacon and groundnuts were growing in buckets until the middle and late June. More groundnuts had to be purchased in the spring 2024 to ensure enough tubers were ready to be sold in Fall 2024. More yacon tubers were purchased in the Fall 2024 to help ensure enough plants for Spring 2025 will be available. The CaDF Board did offer a little help with moving large items and tilling. The arm cast came off at the end of May and by early summer, the storage hoophouse had been cleared and set up for use and by mid-summer the newly assigned unused farm space had been re-opened and ready for planting. Propagation of pineberries and chocolate mint plants were also delayed. However, by October 2024, enough pineberry and chocolate mint plants were available for sale along with groundnut tubers. Sunchokes were added to the mix for something to sell in place of the unavailable yacons but they serendipitously exposed the problem of the unwelcomed assertive growing nature of native culinary plants. Yacons tubers were not available until late October. Another problem that will be addressed in the marketing plan and tools involves selling out-of-season. Due to the forementioned delays, stock plants that needed to be put into the ground for next year's harvest were being sold in the fall when people were looking for produce they could eat. When all of the traditional farmers were selling produce, Green Garden Foraging was selling plants to put into the ground. 

The local Washtenaw County farm markets will be used as the county has a strong farm market presence with all residents living with 10 miles of a farm market (Washtenawmarkets.org). Also both the Ann Arbor and Dexter Farm Markets are actively seeking vendors with unique food items to sell (Applicant FAQs .pdf (a2gov.org), Dexter, MI Farmers Market (dextermi.gov). 

All of these steps will be undertaken in order to create a self-guided marketing plan and easy-to-use set of supportive marketing tools that farmers can use to market their unfamiliar crops.

1 additional resources include: watering beyond rainfall or extensive irrigation, and additional fertilizer beyond basic compost.

Objectives

  1. Investigate and evaluate the effectiveness of current methods for marketing uncommon produce. This will provide a collective
    picture of current marketing practices already being employed and assess if the practice is effective for specialty produce.
  2. Explore and evaluate new methods of marketing specialty produce. Traditional marketing plans work well for traditional
    produce but novel or unusual produce may need additional or revised marketing tools.
  3. Create a practical customizable marketing toolbox designed for marketing unfamiliar produce to customers.
  • 2024 Update: Meeting objectives are ongoing and are set to be met by the end of the project. 

Research

Materials and methods:

Six customer marketing segments were identified through the use of basic online and in-person market research, input from an agriculture marketing expert, and online AI. Those marketing segments are as follows:

  1. General Customer: A person who cooks infrequently but is interested in fresh produce for either taste or health reasons.
  2. Home Cook/ Food Enthusiast: A person who enjoys food and cooks often.
  3. Professional chef: A person who is involved with professional cooking activities.
  4. Farmer/Gardener: A person who grows culinary plants to be used by themselves or sold to others.
  5. Specialty Food Store: A store containing fresh produce and sometimes hard-to-find trendy produce.
  6. Food Blogger/Influencer: A person who actively shares cooking ideas.

Surveys were created for Customer Segments 1-4. Personal interviews are being scheduled for Customer Segments 5 and 6. Paper and online surveys were going to be the vehicle used to gather customer marketing data. However, these types of surveys yielded very few results even with the use of QR codes to access. At first Google Forms was used but the limited formatting capabilities made the survey more difficult than necessary. A SurveyMonkey subscription was purchased and a more usable survey was created. Additionally, SurveyMonkey was also able to easily provide a QR code that was then printed on business cards to hand out at the farm markets.

Overall, the emphasis of gathering data has changed from surveys to personal conversations and focus groups as these methods are yielding the best data. Surveys will again be redesigned to fit onto one notecard that can be easily handed out or filled out during or after a conversation. Focus groups will be scheduled to help in gathering additional data.

The plant offerings have stayed the same except for the addition of sunchokes to the mix. Potential customers were critical of planting native sunchokes due to their assertive growing nature and the issue had to be addressed numerous times. 

The data collection sheet is being redesigned from its original format Datasheet Collection Revisions) as it was too vague and didn't collect the information that told a good marketing story. The format going forward into the upcoming farm market season will be more direct, easy to score, and provide data that falls into chapters of a more helpful marketing story. 

Research results and discussion:

2024 Update: Research ongoing. 

Participation Summary
3 Farmers participating in research

Educational & Outreach Activities

3 Curricula, factsheets or educational tools
1 Tours

Participation Summary:

Education/outreach description:

As most of the growing season was spent in re-establishing beds in new locations, very little outreach was done. However, four farm markets were attended in the Fall and each farm market seemed like an outreach event. At each farm market, at least 90% of the time was spent educating the public on these plants and the project. There was so much educational effort being spent that the person helping asked whether there was a focus on education or selling.  There were a few farmers who stopped by at each market and we talked about plants traditionally thought of as "weeds" (such as purslane, chickweed, sunchokes, dandelions, etc.)  making their way into the marketplace. The amount of time spent educating farm market attendees only emphasized the need for more effective informational marketing materials for these unfamiliar plants. 

Ongoing educational conversations are happening with a fellow CaDF farmer, who grows for a local CSA. Ten pounds of sunchokes were offered through his CSA and all available sunchokes were purchased by his subscribers.  Subscriber feedback was positive. We continue to have conversations about offering other types of unique produce this upcoming year as it appears his customers are interested in trying new culinary produce offerings.

Going forward, a speaking engagement at a garden club has already been scheduled as has a speaking engagement at the Ann Arbor GardenFest in Ann Arbor, Michigan has been secured.

Project Outcomes

Success stories:

At one of the Washtenaw County, Michigan farm markets, there was another agricultural vendor who noticed I was selling sunchokes. She stated that her mother's property had a good stand of sunchokes growing on it. She couldn't believe that I was intentionally selling sunchoke tubers at a farm market. To her, they were just invasive weeds taking up space. So, we talked about some market trends, how to prepare the sunchokes, and how to manage them. She asked me to talk with her mother about the potential of these crops but unfortunately, her mother did not attend the market on that day. 

At the same market, a senior farmer approached the booth, and as with the previous vendor, couldn't believe I was selling sunchokes as they were just weeds that he couldn't get rid of. We talked about their edibility and their potential to be used as a market crop instead of just being pulled and discarded. The thought of selling them had never crossed his mind. 

The most telling and insightful conversation happened when a retired North Central Indiana farmer said: "I spent my whole life trying to get rid of the weeds that you are actually trying to grow and sell". I made an attempt to talk to him about the expanding marketplace being more than wheat, corn and soybeans but the conversation ended with a dismissive wag of his head. 

 

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Any opinions, findings, conclusions, or recommendations expressed in this publication are those of the author(s) and should not be construed to represent any official USDA or U.S. Government determination or policy.