Are You and Your Products Ready For Retail Sales?

July 2020  |  go.umd.edu/MRPPP                                                                                   

Are You and Your Products Ready For Retail Sales?

The measure of success for producers and specialty food and beverage entrepreneurs is their sales volume and profitability. In early March, the University of Maryland Extension’s Agricultural Marketing Program introduced plans to launch a new educational marketing program-The Maryland Retail Products Producer Program. Producer and buyer surveys were conducted to clarify perceptions and set benchmarks for successful seller/buyer retail sales transactions and logistics.

Almost 75% of producers surveyed have a retail-product/service they are currently selling to buyers but want to know how to increase market shares and total sales. Almost one-third of those sales are direct to consumers, leaving room for increased sales in the categories of restaurants, institutions, and aggregators.

The ensuing weeks have brought dramatic changes in all the retail market outlets targeted in this program- farm markets, retail stores, restaurants, and institutional sales. However, these channels will eventually re-open. Retail product producers should prepare their products and business logistics now, to be ready to take advantage of re-emerging retail sales channels.

Here is a summary of producer interests and opinions about their retail product readiness, before Covid-19. Though sales have been disrupted, this is valuable information for developing support materials and resources for producing and marketing retail products.