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Comment by Stratoscope | Hacker News Reader

At our local farmer's market, I trust the farmers to negotiate for me.

They have seen me before, and they will often give me a little discount or throw some new thing into my bag to try.

Maybe I could get an extra buck or two off, but I have it pretty easy as a software developer working from home.

Farming and selling at farmer's markets is hard work. If I don't get the very best price, I figure that's a little tip for them.

Of course if I were buying in quantity I might see it differently. But for the bit of produce I buy, I'm happy to pay for quality.

And I bet that if I needed a larger quantity, they would offer me a good deal.

Part of negotiating is building relationships.

I'm not disagreeing with you, and I really enjoyed that strange grocery story. Just offering a related perspective.

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The key to getting good deals at a farmers market is to show up near closing time.

The produce has already been picked; it's not like they can take it back and re-plant it. They will most probably just sell it in bulk to some mom-n-pop grocery store and head back to their farms. So you can score some really nice deals.

I did this when I was tight on cash for a month or two and needed to survive on the more bare minimum budget.

> The produce has already been picked; it's not like they can take it back and re-plant it.

That is such an insightful comment; thank you!

And it's the best kind of negotiating. Not only do you get a good deal, it's a win for the farmer too.

It’s not. Most of them make very little money. They sell their goods at multiple farmers markets.

I know many and they all complain about that rich assholes that do this thinking the food is just going to get thrown away.

> They sell their goods at multiple farmers markets.

Unless they invented some time-travel machine, it's impossible. Most farmers markets around these parts have similar hours: 9AM to 2PM or so.

So, if the farmer leaves the market at 2PM, where will they go? No farmers market is open after 2PM.

There goes your little theory.

Pro-tip: stop treating farmers like children who don't know what they're doing. You city people think you know it all, when in reality, you don't.

You've raised some good points in your comments in this thread.

Can you please leave out the insults and adversarial style?

We try for respectful and polite conversation here, even when we disagree on something. That way we can learn from each other.

From the site guidelines:

> Be kind. Don't be snarky. Have curious conversation; don't cross-examine. Please don't fulminate. Please don't sneer, including at the rest of the community.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Thanks, and I look forward to reading more of your insights!

No comment on the dude calling me an "asshole"? I hate to say "he started it", but he clearly did. It irritates me when people show up with holier-than-thou attitudes, assuming others don't know what they're talking about (I'm referring to @david38, of course)

This is how I get all my cakes. At the end of the day at a donut or cake stand, most of the goods go in the trash.

Even if there is no price flexibility, the employee will often agree to sell you a cake for full price then give you a cake of similar value he was about to put in the trash for free. If they know you always tip and can convince themselves that their employer is also winning, they are highly incentivised to agree.

Sometimes people in a job like this will take the un-eaten cakes home, but in the end they can only find a home for so much free cake.

The trick there, of course, is that you have to not want some of the stuff that sells out

This is a good way to piss off hard working people who don’t make much.

You clearly don’t know anything about how they operate.

You do know the vendors go to multiple farmers markets, right? You’re not saving anything from waste. Unless your particular farmers market is the last stop for that vendor, you’ll piss them off.

You know what happens when you ASSUME things?

You are ASSUMING that I offered them less money.

You are ASSUMING that I somehow forced them to do something they wouldn't do otherwise.

Reality is, they themselves offer great deals on whatever is left. No coercion required.

And last time I checked, it was a free world: I'm free to take their deal or not, and they're free to offer me one, or not.

And by the way: I learnt of this trick from farmers themselves.

The margins on a grocery store are very low, it would be crazy to try to haggle there.

In a farmer's market, they probably throw away half the produce, the margin is more in the quantity of goods than in the price, so it would always be better to try to get more goods for free than to put price down!

> In a farmer's market, they probably throw away half the produce,

I don't think that any modern farm can sustain itself on farmers markets alone except when it's a hobby farm.

Everything not sold there will be sold to supermarkets in bulk. Farmer's markets are just a nice cherry on top where the margins are higher.

I think you’re assuming industrial agriculture? Smaller farms can and do survive on markets. Just because they might only be an acre doesn’t mean they’re a hobby farm; some of these are grossing well into 6 digit income.

I think arguing the definition of "hobby" farm is drifting from the point. Whether or not unsold food gets wasted is the more pertinent question, and I know the small farms I live near, as well as our own hobby farming, has very little waste. Between eating our own food, canning it, or recycling it to the chickens or livestock... not much gets thrown away.

Put into that context, there is absolutely a bottom to the price it is worth selling at. If you are offering less than its value as chicken food, we won't sell. Admittedly, that is still pretty cheap.

I worked on an organic vegetable farm for 5 years. 90% of their income came from direct farmer's market sales. We had the benefit of being able to remember what we sold last week, last year, etc. at farmer's market. We just planned based on that, and rarely ended up throwing away a substantial amount of produce. Lots of vegetables can be returned to cold storage and brought to a market the next day, too. Carrot & beet bunches with greens on them get topped and sold in 5lb bags. Onions, garlic, squash, potatoes, etc don't suffer from going to and from different markets. Salad greens can be more sensitive, but it depends on the weather and how they're displayed.

Also, a box of veg that was made well and truly unsaleable by a day at market would be thrown in the compost to be turned into next year's fertilizer.

The place I worked had ~10 acres in cultivation and grossed $200 - 300k. Their kids have college funds.

They don’t. That would be a wildly stupid thing to do. They sell at multiple markets.

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