Farmers market season is opening across most regions this month, and if last spring taught us anything, it's that a stand's first few weekends set the tone for the whole season. We've heard from more than one member already rebuilding their table layout, reprinting price cards, and rethinking what they're bringing given how much has shifted since the last time this market was open.
A few things are worth checking before your first weekend, whether this is your first season or your fifteenth.
Price your table for this year, not last year
Milk prices have been running well above where they sat a year ago, and that's worked its way into wholesale block and barrel pricing too. If your farmers market price cards are still using last spring's numbers, you're either underpricing your own product or setting expectations you'll have to walk back mid-season. One member who runs a direct-to-consumer program put it this way: "I used to just round up from last year's card. This year I actually sat down with the math, and it turned out I'd been underpricing my aged wheels for two seasons running."
Rebuilding a price sheet from scratch, rather than adjusting last year's, is the better habit — it forces you to account for what your inputs actually cost now, not what you assumed they'd still cost.
If your market allows sampling this year, make sure whoever's cutting samples at the table is current on the basics: clean utensils per cheese, no bare-hand contact, and a plan for anything that's been sitting out past its safe window. It's a small thing that's easy to get sloppy about by midsummer, so it's worth reviewing before the first weekend rather than after a health inspector's visit.
It's also worth a second look at what's on the table itself. A couple of members who follow packaging and product trends closely told us this spring that the biggest shift they're seeing at other stands isn't new cheeses so much as new formats — smaller wedges, pre-cut tasting-size portions, and clearer labeling on what a cheese actually is for someone who's never bought from your stand before. None of that requires new equipment, just a look at your table with a first-time customer's eyes instead of your own.
What the course covers
Our Direct-to-Consumer & Farmers' Markets course walks through this in more depth than a blog post can: stand layout that actually moves people through your case, how to build a price sheet from real input costs instead of last year's habit, sampling logistics, and the conversation you have with a regular customer versus a first-time browser. It runs as a short online cohort, and members who've taken it tell us the stand-layout section alone is worth the time — most of us default to whatever table arrangement we started with years ago, without ever testing whether it's actually working.
If you're opening a stand for the first time this year, or just want a second look at habits you've never questioned, registration is open through the member portal. The next cohort starts in a few weeks, in time to put what you learn to use before the season gets busy.
The International Cheese Federation (ICF) and More Cheese are entirely fictional. This post is demonstration content created for MemberJunction. All people, organizations, events, courses, certifications, figures, and quotations in it are invented, and nothing here represents a real association, a real business, a real person, or real professional advice.