St. Paul Growers Association

December 1998
Interview with: Jack Gerten
Goal: Improve direct marketing opportunities and educate urban consumers about local food production.
Date Established: 1852
Area Served: East Central Minnesota
Number of Members: 185
Key Challenges: Product diversity, quality control, customer accessibility
Helpful Resources: City of St. Paul

The St. Paul Growers Association, known as the St. Paul Farmers Market by locals, is one of the oldest collaborative marketing success stories in Minnesota. Producers of farm, garden, and orchard products have been organizing and marketing directly as a group to St. Paul residents for nearly 150 years.

Why market collaboratively - identifying a need and an opportunity

In 1852, farmers living near the state capital forged an agreement with the City of St. Paul to begin a weekly market. According to its original charter, the St. Paul Growers Association was created to promote Minnesota agriculture and educate urban residents about locally grown food. Today, the Association’s mission remains relatively unchanged. Farm families and growers still market food in downtown St. Paul and other locations each week to generate income and to share information with buyers about how and where their food is grown.

Although its mission has changed little over the past 150 years, Association members maintain a flexible membership and marketing strategy that has allowed them to adapt over the years to fluctuating producer and consumer demands.

Membership recruitment and responsibilities

The St. Paul Growers Association serves more than 185 farm members. As a result of careful management, families have been returning to the Association as members for generations. Association membership is determined annually by a nine-member board of directors. Each year, in advance of its annual meeting in February, the board reviews applications and accepts those which fulfill Association criteria, namely that all products are homegrown and that the business is individually owned.

Prior to 1998, membership rules required that growers farm within a 50-mile radius of St. Paul. "We decided to change this rule in 1998. The board agreed to open up the membership to any grower in Minnesota with the hope of introducing a larger variety of products," explains Association manager Jack Gerten. "This decision has been a success so far. The Association offered wild rice, mushrooms, and lamb for the first time in 1998 by expanding our membership." Product diversity forms the basis of the Association’s current marketing strategy. "We hope that by introducing more diversity into the market through a variety of products we can attract a broader customer base," Gerten says, explaining that this marketing strategy is based on regular customer research.

Member benefits

The Association does more than provide a space for direct marketing. Its manager also provides members with constant feedback on shifts in consumer preferences so that spring and summer planting decisions can be made accordingly. Consumer demands are identified by Gerten through periodic surveys, conversations with local community leaders who are in touch with new resident populations, and work with the Minnesota Department of Agriculture. "I try to get involved as much as I can to give growers as much insight as possible into who their customers are and what their customers want," Gerten says. Customers, who travel up to 20 miles to buy from Association members at various markets, include low-income families, ethnic groups, and quality-conscious consumers. "We are starting to see more and more immigrant groups who are looking for native foods," Gerten explains, adding that this change in customer preferences is also part of what motivated the Association to search for growers who can offer more diverse products.

Challenges and opportunities

Association members recently confronted two challenges related to increasing urban sprawl and limited downtown St. Paul stall space.

The Association began "going out into the community" beginning in 1983 to reach more customers, such as senior citizens and suburban families, as resident lifestyles and neighborhoods sprawled well beyond downtown St. Paul. "We’ve expanded over the past century from one large farmers’ market in downtown St. Paul to 10 small-to-medium sized markets throughout the Twin Cities," explains Gerten. "Sometimes we have two markets going on each day in different parts of the city."

The decision to expand weekly markets was also a solution to limited stall space in downtown St. Paul. "We were able to open the Association to more members by creating additional markets," Gerten explains, noting that the organization hopes to increase its membership to 200 growers, a level that was attained at the market’s peak in the early 1970s.

Thanks to marketing flexibility and constant planning, Association markets draw approximately 20,000 consumers and 185 members each week at locations throughout the Twin Cities to buy and sell locally grown products.

Operations

The Board meets monthly to oversee the Association’s marketing strategy, financial plan, and membership applications. Gerten is the Association’s only full-time employee and has managed the organization for two years, although his family has been involved in the market as grower-members for years. Each spring a temporary assistant is hired to help Gerten prepare for the opening of the market season and to visit members’ operations.

As the Association’s manager, Gerten works hard to maintain the Market’s reputation for quality and freshness. He visits each new grower and approximately 40 percent of returning grower-members every year to "verify" that the operation meets membership guidelines. Products also undergo informal weekly inspection for quality and freshness once they reach the market. "Ninety-nine percent of the food that comes to the market is fresh and of a high quality," Gerten says. "But every once in a while we’ll have to ask someone to remove a product from the market if it doesn’t meet Association standards."

Finances

Although the Association began in 1852 with funding from the City of St. Paul, it has become financially "self-sufficient" over the years. Association income, used primarily to pay for advertising and management staff, is generated through membership dues, stall fees, gifts, donations, and grants each year. The City of St. Paul continues to subsidize grounds and building rental for the Association in accordance with the St. Paul Farmers Market’s original charter.

Words of advice

For well over a century, the St. Paul market has provided farmers and other growers with an opportunity to reach a much larger group of consumers than would be possible as individual sellers and the opportunity to market products directly to consumers. After many years of collaborative marketing, the Association has learned to be successful through:

Continuous communication among the board and members;
A thorough understanding of customer needs and wants;
Customer and grower education; and
A willingness to respond to changing membership and marketing needs.

As a result, the Association continues to fulfill its original charter goals to promote local farm products and to educate urban consumers about agriculture in Minnesota.

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