Imported from human-avatar/skills-for-agriculture (skills/s4ag-direct-marketing/SKILL.md). Install upstream with npx skills add human-avatar/skills-for-agriculture --skill s4ag-direct-marketing. Copyright stays with the author.

Direct Marketing

Selling directly to the people who eat your food is the single most powerful move a small farm can make for its financial health. Every link you remove from the supply chain between field and fork is margin that stays on the farm rather than going to a trader, packer, or retailer. The goal here is not just a sales channel — it is a customer relationship that sustains the farm for years, enables you to tell the truth about how you grow, and turns soil health investment into a price premium.

How this skill works: Each sub-tool pauses at a Checkpoint to confirm the assumptions it is about to build on before producing output. A recommendation built on a wrong assumption wastes time and money — confirm the checkpoint before acting. Each sub-tool ends with Next steps — the skills worth running once you have acted on this one.

Expert Lineage

The thinkers whose frameworks underpin this skill — and what they specifically discovered that changes how you farm.

Jean-Martin Fortier — The Market Gardener Model Fortier demonstrated at La Grelinette in Quebec that a two-acre intensive market garden could gross over $140,000 per year — not through scale but through direct sales discipline and intensive bed systems. His specific finding: the revenue-per-bed-foot metric, tracked weekly, tells you exactly which crops and channels are worth your time and which are destroying it. His model treats direct marketing as the primary production constraint — you grow what your customers will pay for, not what is easiest to grow.

Elizabeth Henderson — The CSA Covenant Henderson's Sharing the Harvest is the foundational text for community-supported agriculture in North America. Her specific contribution: the CSA is not a box scheme with a prepayment — it is a risk-sharing relationship. Farmers who design it as a financial transaction lose members; farmers who design it as a community covenant retain members for years. Her research on member retention shows that farm visits, newsletters, and genuine transparency about crop failures build loyalty that price competition cannot buy.

Severine von Tscharner Fleming — New Farmer Economics Fleming through the Greenhorns network documented how new and beginning farmers in the US navigate the first five years of direct market farming. Her specific finding: the highest attrition rate among new direct-market farmers comes not from poor growing but from poor channel selection — farmers who choose channels that don't match their production system, their geography, or their personal communication style. Match the channel to the farmer first, the crop second.

Eliot Coleman — Quality as the Competitive Moat Coleman's decades at Four Season Farm in Maine demonstrated that small farms cannot win on price against industrial producers, but can win decisively on quality, variety, and freshness. His specific insight: restaurants and discerning retail customers will pay a 40–80% premium for produce that genuinely tastes different — and the only sustainable route to that quality difference is biological soil management. The flavour premium is the financial return on the soil health investment.

Robin Wall Kimmerer — Reciprocity in Customer Relationships Kimmerer's framework of the honorable harvest — take only what you need, give back what you can, be honest about what you're doing — translates directly into the most durable direct marketing relationships. The farmers who build twenty-year CSA memberships and loyal restaurant accounts operate on this principle instinctively: they underpromise, overdeliver, communicate honestly in difficult seasons, and treat customers as partners rather than revenue units.

WSDA Direct Marketing Research — Channel Profitability Washington State Department of Agriculture's direct marketing research across hundreds of farms identified that farmers who track revenue per channel rather than total revenue almost always discover that two channels generate 80% of profit while consuming 40% of time. The specific finding: farm shops and CSA subscriptions have the highest profit margin per dollar of sales; spot sales to restaurants have the lowest, unless volume is high and delivery is efficient. Track before you scale.

Which tool fits

Routing Decision

• No direct sales yet, wanting to start → csa-design first if you have an existing network; farm-shop if you have roadside or walk-in traffic; restaurant-relationships if you produce a specialty product
• Have a box scheme that isn't growing or losing members → csa-design (member retention section)
• Have a farm shop and want to improve margins or footfall → farm-shop
• Growing volume of produce and want a consistent buyer → restaurant-relationships
• Have a website and want it to actually sell → online-sales
• Unclear which channel to prioritise → run csa-design first; it forces you to answer the questions that determine channel fit

CSA Design

Builds or improves a community-supported agriculture scheme — pricing, structure, delivery logistics, and member management.

A CSA works when the customer relationship is strong enough to survive a bad season. A box scheme — same product, different framing — does not. The difference is design: how you price, communicate, recruit, and retain members determines whether you have a community or a subscription list. This sub-tool walks through both the commercial and relational design.

1. Decide the share structure first.

The most common failure in CSA design is setting the price before setting the share structure. Work in this order:

2. Pricing the share.

Work from cost, not from what you think the market will bear.

Step 1 — Calculate your target revenue: what do you need this channel to generate per season? Step 2 — Estimate member count realistically (not aspirationally). Year 1: half your target. Year 2: target if retention is high. Step 3 — Divide target revenue by realistic member count to get share price. Step 4 — Check that share price delivers fair value. A weekly vegetable share should contain retail value of at least 1.2–1.5x the share price to make the premium feel justified. Step 5 — Add a sliding scale option (reduced share for lower-income households, supported by a higher-rate "supporter share") — this builds community goodwill without reducing average revenue.

3. Recruitment — where members come from.

The best recruiting tool is a farm open day before the season opens. Prospective members who visit the farm convert at 3–5x the rate of those who only see a website.

4. Member retention — what keeps people.

Retention matters more than recruitment. Replacing a member costs 5–10x the cost of keeping one.

Actions that raise retention:

• Regular (fortnightly) newsletter — crop news, recipe, farm story. Under 300 words. Honest about what is hard.
• At least one farm visit per season, open to members.
• A harvest surprise in one box per season — something not in the standard share.
• Fast, direct communication when a crop fails or a box is short. Members who are told in advance almost always forgive; members who notice without being told often leave.
• End-of-season survey — ask directly what they valued and what frustrated them.

Actions that kill retention:

• Box contents that are heavy on gluts (ten courgettes in week six).
• No communication during difficult seasons.
• Making it hard to skip a week or pause a membership when life intervenes.

5. Logistics — packing and delivery.

Packing one hundred boxes is a different operation from packing twenty. Plan the system before you commit to the member count.

Delivery depot logistics: recruit a depot host (a member who lets you drop a batch of boxes at their address or workplace). Compensate with a free share. A depot point covering 8–12 members is worth two hours of individual delivery time.

Checkpoint — confirm before finalising:

• What is the realistic member count in year one — not the target, the honest floor-case number?
• What is the delivery model — farm collection, depots, home delivery — and have you costed delivery time against share price?
• Is the farm's production volume sufficient to fill the share size reliably through the full season length, or is there a known gap month?

A CSA priced for sixty members and launched with twenty will not cover its costs. A share size set without checking the June gap will produce a crisis in year one.

Output:

CSA SCHEME DESIGN

STRUCTURE
Season length: [weeks]
Share size options: [individual / family / large]
Frequency: [weekly / fortnightly]
Contents: [fixed / partial choice]
Delivery model: [farm collection / depot / home delivery]

PRICING
Target seasonal revenue from CSA: [£/$]
Realistic year-one member count: [number]
Full-season share price: [£/$]
Half-season share price (if offered): [£/$]
Sliding-scale range: [reduced rate — full rate]
Retail value check: [what £/$ of produce goes into each box]

RECRUITMENT PLAN
Primary channel: [channel and approach]
Secondary channel: [channel and approach]
Open day date: [date]
Year-one target: [members]

LOGISTICS
Packing day: [day of week]
Packing team: [number of people]
Depot points: [locations and host names]
Delivery day: [day of week]

COMMUNICATION SCHEDULE
Newsletter frequency: [fortnightly / weekly]
Farm visit date: [date]
End-of-season survey: [date]

FIRST-SEASON RISKS
[risk 1 and mitigation]
[risk 2 and mitigation]

Next steps:

• Run farm-shop (within this skill) — a farm shop and CSA together share packing infrastructure and cross-recruit customers.
• /s4ag-seasons — plan the crop calendar so the CSA box has variety through every week of the season, including gap months.
• /s4ag-vegetables — identify which crops to prioritise for the box and what succession planting keeps them coming.

Farm Shop

Sets up or improves a farm shop — range, pricing, margins, customer experience, and compliance basics.

A farm shop earns the best margin per product of any direct sales channel because there is no packing, no delivery, and the customer comes to you. The challenge is footfall — getting enough people through the door often enough to justify the range and the opening hours. This sub-tool covers range selection, pricing, physical setup, and the operational decisions that separate a farm shop that makes money from one that becomes a second job without the revenue.

1. Is a farm shop the right channel?

Before designing the shop, confirm the preconditions:

If two or more preconditions fail, start with a CSA or market stall and return to farm shop when the conditions are met.

2. Range selection.

The range determines who your customer is. Choose a customer archetype first, then build the range around them.

A successful farm shop often runs two of these archetypes simultaneously: a convenience range that drives weekly visits, and a specialty range that drives the average transaction value up.

Lead products: Every farm shop needs 3–5 products that people come specifically for. Eggs are the most common. Heritage tomatoes in summer. A particular variety of apple. These are the products you should never run out of.

3. Pricing.

Farm shop pricing should be above supermarket price, justified by quality, provenance, and story. It does not need to be above farmers market price — the convenience premium replaces the market experience premium.

Pricing framework:

• Cost of production × 3–4 for own-grown produce: this covers growing cost, packing, shop overhead, and profit margin.
• If unsure of production cost: start at 1.5–1.8× local market price. Adjust quarterly based on sellout rate.
• If a product is selling out every week: the price is too low.
• If a product is regularly left over: the price may be too high, or the product is wrong for the range.

Margin targets by product category:

Buying in from other farms to fill range gaps is legitimate and often necessary. The discipline: never buy in at a margin below 35% unless it is a footfall driver that brings customers in to buy other things.

4. Physical setup.

The physical space communicates quality before the customer reads a price label.

Principles that work in farm shops:

• Height variation on display: eye level, waist level, and floor level. Flat single-level displays feel low-effort.
• Handwritten or hand-printed labels that name the product and tell something about it: "Sungold cherry tomatoes — picked this morning" outperforms "Cherry tomatoes £2.50/punnet".
• The smell of fresh produce, bread, or coffee at the entrance. Olfactory memory drives return visits.
• Visible connection to the farm: a window into a growing area, a chalkboard with what was harvested today, a photo of the field or animal the product came from.
• Basket placement at the entrance, not inside. Customers without a basket buy less.

5. Opening hours discipline.

The fastest way to lose a farm shop customer is to be closed when they expect you to be open. Set hours you can sustain for the full season, not the hours you would have if everything went perfectly.

Minimum viable opening schedule for most farm shops: three days per week with consistent hours, including at least one weekend day. Better to be open fewer hours reliably than more hours inconsistently.

6. Compliance basics.

This is not legal advice — consult your local authority. The most common requirements:

• Food business registration (required in most jurisdictions for selling food commercially)
• Food hygiene certification for anyone handling food
• Allergen labelling on processed or composite products
• Public liability insurance
• Planning permission if building a new structure or changing use of an existing one

Checkpoint — confirm before finalising:

• Is there consistent passing trade or a known customer catchment within driving distance, or will the shop depend entirely on marketing to attract visitors?
• What are the committed opening hours — and can those hours be maintained through peak growing season when field time competes with shop time?
• Is there a food business registration in place, or does one need to be applied for before opening?

A farm shop without footfall or consistent hours loses money quietly until the farmer gives up. Confirm the footfall assumption before fitting out a space.

Output:

FARM SHOP PLAN

SITE ASSESSMENT
Passing traffic rating: [high / medium / low]
Nearest population centre: [distance and size]
Opening hours (proposed): [days and times]
Floor area: [approximate m² or ft²]

RANGE PLAN
Lead products (never run out): [list of 3–5]
Convenience range: [list]
Specialty range: [list]
Third-party bought-in products: [list]
Estimated range breadth: [number of SKUs]

PRICING
Sample product pricing: [product — cost price — sell price — margin %]
Average target transaction value: [£/$]

FINANCIAL PROJECTIONS
Estimated weekly footfall: [customers]
Estimated average transaction: [£/$]
Estimated weekly revenue: [£/$]
Estimated weekly gross profit at [X]% margin: [£/$]

COMPLIANCE CHECKLIST
Food business registration: [in place / required]
Food hygiene certification: [in place / required]
Allergen labelling reviewed: [yes / no]
Public liability insurance: [in place / required]
Planning permission: [not required / applied for / in place]

SETUP PRIORITIES
1. [first priority]
2. [second priority]
3. [third priority]

Next steps:

• Run csa-design (within this skill) — farm shop customers who visit regularly are the best CSA prospects; cross-recruit.
• /s4ag-market — if footfall is uncertain, a farmers market stall builds the customer base that can then be directed to the farm shop.
• /s4ag-finance — model the farm shop as an enterprise with its own gross margin before committing capital to the setup.

Online Sales

Builds or improves an online farm shop — platform selection, fulfilment, photography, and the mechanics of converting a website visitor into a paying customer.

An online farm shop works when it solves a specific problem: customers who cannot get to the farm or the market, or customers who want the convenience of ordering from their phone. It does not work as a substitute for not having a customer relationship — people do not discover a small farm's online shop by accident. Online sales are a channel extension for existing customers, not a customer acquisition strategy.

1. What online sales can and cannot do.

Fresh produce home delivery is viable at scale or with efficient depot networks. Below roughly 50 orders per delivery run, the economics are usually poor unless delivery charge covers vehicle cost. Shelf-stable products (preserves, dried herbs, honey, grains) are more naturally suited to postal or courier delivery.

2. Platform selection.

For most farms starting online: Shopify or Squarespace for a simple product range; Local Line or Barn2Door for box scheme management with delivery routing.

3. Photography and product presentation.

Online sales depend entirely on the quality of photography. Poor photography is the single biggest conversion killer.

Rules that work:

• Natural light, outdoor or near a window. Avoid flash.
• Props that reinforce the farm story: a wooden crate, a worn work surface, soil or leaves in background.
• Show scale — a hand in the frame, or familiar objects alongside the produce.
• For fresh produce: photograph on the harvest day. Yesterday's produce looks yesterday's.
• For preserved goods: show the product in use — jam on bread, dried herbs in a jar on a shelf.

Minimum photography investment: two hours per season for fresh produce shots; one afternoon for preserved goods. A decent smartphone in good light is sufficient — the farm story matters more than the camera.

4. Fulfilment planning.

Decide fulfilment model before launching:

5. The mechanics of conversion.

Most farm websites have a traffic problem (not enough visitors) and a conversion problem (the visitors who arrive don't buy). Address conversion before trying to drive more traffic.

Conversion checklist:

• Is there a clear call-to-action on the homepage (Order now / Join the CSA)?
• Can a visitor complete a purchase in under three minutes without creating an account?
• Is the product description more than the product name and a price? Story sells.
• Is there a photo of the farmer or the farm somewhere on the site? Trust is a conversion factor.
• Is there an email capture for people who are interested but not yet ready to buy?

Traffic acquisition for farm websites: email newsletter to existing customers is the most effective. Instagram and Facebook for farms with strong visual content. Local press and community groups for local delivery. Google search visibility is slow to build and rarely worth investing in for a small farm at this stage.

Checkpoint — confirm before finalising:

• Is the online shop serving existing customers (known demand) or trying to find new ones (unproven demand)? The answer determines which platform and how much to invest.
• What is the fulfilment model — and has the cost of delivery been calculated honestly against the average order value?
• Is there a product range that makes sense to sell online, or is the entire range fresh produce that requires next-day delivery infrastructure?

An online shop built before the customer relationship exists is a shop with no footfall. Confirm there is a list of people who already want to buy before investing in the platform.

Output:

ONLINE SALES PLAN

PLATFORM
Recommended platform: [platform name]
Monthly platform cost: [£/$]
Transaction fee: [%]
Setup timeline: [weeks]

PRODUCT RANGE FOR ONLINE
Fresh produce (local delivery only): [list if applicable]
Shelf-stable (postal): [list]
Subscription products: [list if applicable]

FULFILMENT MODEL
Model: [click-and-collect / local delivery / postal]
Delivery areas: [radius or postcodes]
Delivery charge: [£/$ per order]
Minimum order value: [£/$]
Order cutoff day: [day]
Despatch / collection day: [day]

PHOTOGRAPHY PLAN
Products to photograph: [list]
Photography date: [date]

CONVERSION CHECKLIST
Homepage CTA: [yes / to add]
Guest checkout: [enabled / to enable]
Product descriptions with story: [yes / to write]
Farmer/farm photo on site: [yes / to add]
Email capture: [in place / to add]

LAUNCH TARGETS
Month 1 orders: [number]
Month 3 orders: [number]
Target monthly revenue from online: [£/$]

Next steps:

• Run restaurant-relationships (within this skill) — restaurants found through your online presence are warm leads if approached with specifics.
• /s4ag-market — a farmers market presence builds the email list that makes online sales viable.
• /s4ag-finance — model online as an enterprise; include platform cost, fulfilment time, and delivery vehicle cost before assuming it improves overall farm profitability.

Restaurant Relationships

Builds and maintains direct accounts with restaurants, cafes, and chefs — pricing, approach, communication, and reliability.

Selling to restaurants delivers volume and consistency but demands reliability and a willingness to communicate honestly about supply. A chef who trusts you is a customer for years. A chef who was let down once — or never told about a supply problem in advance — is gone. This sub-tool covers finding the right accounts, pricing correctly for wholesale, and building the communication habits that make chef relationships last.

1. Which restaurants to approach.

Not all restaurants are good accounts. Qualify before approaching.

Target accounts where: (a) the chef writes their own menu, (b) the menu changes with the season, (c) the restaurant describes itself as sourcing locally or sustainably.

2. The approach.

Cold outreach to a chef works only if it is specific. Generic "we're a local farm" emails are ignored.

What works:

• Short email (under 150 words) naming a specific product you have, with availability and price. Not a price list — one product.
• Timing: approach when you have something genuinely interesting. Heritage tomatoes in peak summer, forced rhubarb in January, unusual variety available in volume.
• Follow up once. Not three times.
• Offer a tasting sample without obligation. A box of produce on the chef's pass is more persuasive than any email.
• Reference a mutual connection if you have one. The local food community is small.

What does not work:

• Emailing a full price list to a chef who has never heard of you.
• Approaching during service (lunch 12–3, dinner 6–10).
• Overselling your product before the chef has tasted it.
• Promising availability you are not certain of.

3. Pricing for wholesale.

Wholesale price to a restaurant is typically 50–65% of retail price. This is not a concession — it reflects that the chef buys in volume, creates no packing cost per unit, and pays on account.

Pricing decision sequence:

1. What is the retail or market price for this product?
2. Multiply by 0.55–0.65 to get the wholesale range.
3. Check: does this wholesale price cover your production cost plus a margin? If not, do not supply at this price — you are subsidising the restaurant.
4. For specialty or unusual products with no obvious retail comparison: cost-up and apply a 2.5–3× markup on production cost.
5. Do not negotiate below production cost + 30%. Below this, the account is destroying value.

Minimum order and delivery logistics:

4. Supply communication — the make-or-break habit.

Chefs write menus days or weeks in advance. If you tell them on delivery day that you don't have what was expected, they cannot adapt. If you tell them four days before, they can.

Non-negotiable communication habits:

• Weekly availability update sent by the same method (email, text, WhatsApp) at the same time each week.
• Any supply shortfall communicated immediately it is known — do not wait until delivery day.
• Propose an alternative when something is short: "I don't have the courgettes this week but I have more patty pan squash than expected."
• Never over-promise in a good season and under-deliver in a bad one. Consistent reliable supply at a slightly lower volume beats variable supply.

5. Soil health as a sales conversation with chefs.

Chefs at the level who will pay a premium for your produce often understand — or want to understand — the connection between soil biology and food quality. The flavour of a carrot grown on a biologically active soil with high mineral complexity is demonstrably different from a carrot grown on depleted soil with synthetic inputs.

How to have this conversation:

• Invite the chef to the farm. The visit converts. Chefs who have seen your soil do not leave.
• In conversations, be specific: "Our tomatoes taste different because we don't use soluble fertilisers — the plant works harder and concentrates more flavour." Not "we're organic" — organic has become a label. Say what you actually do.
• Offer to do a growers dinner — a meal cooked on the farm with the chef. These events create loyalty that price competition cannot touch.

Checkpoint — confirm before finalising:

• Is the production volume sufficient to supply a weekly restaurant account reliably — not just in peak season but through the shoulder months when a chef needs consistency?
• Is the wholesale price above the production cost + 30% minimum margin threshold?
• Is there a system for weekly supply communication — or will the information reach the chef only when there is a problem?

Supplying a restaurant below margin because the volume feels good is one of the most common financial mistakes in direct-to-trade farm sales. Confirm the price before committing to the account.

Output:

RESTAURANT ACCOUNT PLAN

TARGET ACCOUNTS
Account 1: [restaurant name]
Contact: [chef name]
Why a fit: [one line]
Approach method: [email / in person / introduction]
Opening product: [specific product to lead with]

Account 2: [restaurant name]
Contact: [chef name]
Why a fit: [one line]
Approach method: [method]
Opening product: [product]

[repeat for each target account]

PRICING
Product: [product name]
Retail / market price: [£/$]
Wholesale price (55–65% of retail): [£/$]
Production cost: [£/$]
Margin at wholesale: [%]
Minimum viable margin (30%): [£/$] — [check: above or below?]

DELIVERY LOGISTICS
Delivery day: [day]
Delivery window: [time]
Minimum order value: [£/$]
Payment terms: [14 days / monthly]

COMMUNICATION SYSTEM
Weekly availability update: [day and method]
Shortfall notification protocol: [describe]

ACCOUNT TARGETS
Year 1 target: [number of accounts]
Weekly revenue target from restaurant channel: [£/$]

Next steps:

• /s4ag-finance — model restaurant accounts as an enterprise gross margin; include delivery time as a cost before deciding how many accounts to carry.
• Run csa-design (within this skill) — CSA members and restaurant chefs who love your produce are your strongest advocates for recruiting new customers.
• /s4ag-certification — restaurants with a provenance story may want to promote organic or regenerative certification; assess whether the premium it enables justifies the cost.