While it's always disappointing to be making such a little return on your investment of time and capital, I'm not really surprised. If you read some of my earlier blog posts, you'll note that I was always skeptical about the farmers market model for selling produce. It just seemed that there was too much competition for the same stuff, and the stuff wasn't very high value to begin with. This is exactly what we're finding at the Mt. Vernon Farmers Market this year. There are lots of other vendors with mixed vegetables, and many of those people sell their vegetables as a hobby, so they're not worried about making little money. In addition, many of the vendors have been attending the market for 20 years, which makes it hard for us to cut into their market share.
We chose to do a market this year because it was the easiest thing for us to do with limited time for planning after moving to our new farm. We wanted to get our name out into the community and have a venue for marketing our pork, so it seemed like a low risk investment of our time. To that end, it has been successful, but you probably won't be seeing us at another farmers market next year. With every experience, we learn and reevaluate.