‘Self-belief key to selling direct to the market’

BELIEVING in your product is the key step for farmers looking to sell direct to consumers, says a leading Bord Bia mentor.

Margaret Hoctor of Kilmullen Farm has developed workshops for Bord Bia on the skillset farmers needed to sell their products at a farmers’ markets.

Margaret told the Farming Independent that one of the biggest issues she comes across at the workshops is farmers not having enough elf-belief in their products.

“It’s about self-belief. Some farmers are shy or nervous but what I say to them is that they need to believe their product is good enough to charge, and shouldn’t apologise for asking people to pay for it,” she said. After being made redundant in 2013, Margaret began selling lamb directly to customers at farmers’ markets in Dún Laoghaire and Leopardstown.

Workshops

At the workshops, she teaches everything farmers need to know about selling at markets so they can get their product from “the kitchen table to the market table”. “I teach farmers about kitting their table out, training staff, branding, PR.

“The benefit of farmers’ markets is that you get to sell your products and meet people, and your product expands through word of mouth,” she said.

Another round of Bord Bia farmer’s market training will take place in the last quarter of 2018.