The purpose of this project is to take Leland Farms to a new business level.  Our objective is     to transform the business from a seasonal nomadic outdoor operation to a permenatly located indoor operation.  Our experience with being outdoors is the uncertainity of the weather.  Most of the outdoor venues  run rain or shine.  And, you don't get a refund if you are a no-show.  Another problem is that many outdoor venues occure only once a year.  This not the way to create a customer base.  So you always have rely on new business.

Farmers Markets are a partial solution to this problem.  But they have problems as well.  You are restricted as to what you can sell.  Markets will exclussivity assign the selling of certain items to specific vendors.  At the market that we were at last summer, most of Flo's baked goods couldn't be sold.  And, Farmer's Markets are outdoors as well.  Rain or Shine and you don't sell in the rain!

We found an indoor market Hudson Valley Marketplace which is open every weekend.  It does not allow flea market items and vendors have to be present every weekend.  We have been there and this is an up-scale operation. It has a specality food vendor area with no restrictions of what we can sell.  Now our entire line of products and the addition of other pickled products can be sold.

We need funding  to be able to buy supplies {chocolate, bags, jars, lables etc} in bulk, a system for processing checks and credit cards for payment, a certified scale and a cash regester with UPC scanning, and the rent.  And we may have to rent commercial kitchen space for some food processing due to NYS regulations.

 The approximate cost per weekend is $125.00  In 2011, we averaged $220.00 to $ 250.00 per day with unknown/inconsistent traffic.  With a permenant location and with much larger and consisent traffic flow, we should easily double if not triple our sales.  When this occures, we will be able to expand to other sites.  But only with your support.

Please Note  We would love to send our pickles and fudge as rewards, but shipping/refrigeration costs are too expensive

If you have additional questions email me at lelandfarms@optonline.net

Thank You for yor consideration of our project

Paul and Florence Benben

http://www.lelandfarms.com/