Andrea Warner  00:09
Well, we'll get there as I recording. Welcome, everybody to our August market manager forum. Our topic for the month is vendor recruitment. And I'm glad you could all join us today. And why don't we quickly go around and introduce ourselves say what market we're from. My name is Andrea Warner and I'm the market manager liaison for the New Mexico farmers Marketing Association. And I will call on my colleague Scott.

Scott Knauer  00:48
Hey, again, everybody. I think we're all pretty well acquainted with one another. This feels like the core group but I'm joining you from Clovis as always, and I am NMFMA is marketing and technology specialist. I see Victoria moving around. So I'll tag her next. 

Victoria  01:08
Hi, everyone. My name is Victoria Martinez. And I'm the Farmers Market Manager here for Carlsbad, New Mexico. So I don't know I can't see anybody else who I could tag Let me see. But something super interesting. We have going on today's we have a market night today. I but we're also having a pep rally for Carlsbad High School and so we're super excited. We're super pumped. Looks like we're gonna have a great community turnout today. Cavemen, yay, yes.

Andrea Warner  01:50
What a great way to bring the community out who might not be coming out to market. That's a that's a wonderful customer and vendor recruitment idea that I didn't even get into our slideshow today. Thanks, Victoria for the community. Community outreach is great. Well, I'll help I see Allison next to you. So Alison went into good next,

Alison Penn  02:17
Hi, everybody. I'm Alison and I am reporting from Las Cruces. I am the Communications administrator for the NMFMA. I'm also having my lunch so I'm going to be having my camera off, but I will say I have local tomatoes. I have beautiful like yellow watermelon and also like to lasso it's like a local taking. So that's my lunch today. And I will tell you, Lindsey for Tiffany, sorry. I read your last name. I know who you are.

Victoria  02:43
Know who I

Tiffany  02:44
am. Hi, I'm Tiffany. I'm the manager of the Silver City farmers market.

Andrea Warner  02:57
I think Virginia, you're you're our last year. You want to unmute and

Scott Knauer  03:07
she might be out of pocket. She says she's in the middle of a construction project today. But listen.

Andrea Warner  03:13
Yes, let's thank you. I don't have that chat. So I appreciate the chat readers. Okay, well, let's jump right into

Scott Knauer  03:25
did we get Mr. Ron? Oh,

Andrea Warner  03:28
sorry, Ron. Right. We you share but you didn't share with the group you think?

Ron M.  03:33
Okay. I was just hiding. No, I'm a manager of the Black Mesa winery, farmers market and a participant for the VBAC winery like market. So both of my markets have ever

Andrea Warner  03:58
let's get started, I'll share my screen here and we'll get our slideshow can everybody see the slideshow on the screen? Yes. So IRA. The presentation today I'm doing a very short, very basic presentation on vendor recruitment. And I was hoping that at the end of our presentation today, we might have some of you all share some of your experiences, some wins or some losses or some challenges on vendor recruitment and we can get a little deeper into your needs as after the presentation So things to consider, oops, sorry, this little preview of what's to come things to consider for vendor recruitment, you're always going to want to be thinking about meeting the needs of the community and offering a variety of products. Thinking about who your customers are checking in with your vendors about what they're buying. And something I saw as I was doing a little research into vendor recruitment was was this wording, culturally relevant foods in your community. And I think that there's a couple different ways we can think of culturally relevant. One is, would be just the culture of your community. In New Mexico, there's so much diversity among the food in the communities and what grows in the area. And I'll share a little story from the Silver City farmers market a few years ago, one of our vendors started selling Juju B's, which is an Asian fruit that's found its way to New Mexico. And where that first year at Marquette, nobody had heard of it. Now we get people asking at that seasonal point, one of the doobies coming in, when are we going to get GGB. So it actually the market changes to change the culture of food in our community where this little known fruit has now become a favorite. And I've actually seen other vendors selling it as well. So that's one way to think of culturally relevant foods what what do people eat in your area, and it might be different all throughout New Mexico. Another story I can share about culturally relevant foods is we had a vendor in silver silly selling a plant called ASP Buzzards Bay, which is Mexican slang, it's an herb that's used a lot in Mexican cooking. And we did actually have some folks reaching out asking if they could find espresso at the at our market. And so that vendor carrying that food from from, you know, culturally relevant, not from the cooking, and in our area, per se, it did bring in another population, specifically to market because they couldn't find that fluid anywhere else, or that plant anywhere else in our community. And I know in some of our more urban communities, we actually there's immigrant populations that come in. And they're always looking for plants and foods that they might have had in their country and not necessarily able to find here. And so when you're thinking of vendor recruitment, that might be one aspect to think about is foods from other parts of the world that people are looking at in your community and helping finding someone who can offer those. Another idea, another thing to consider for vendor recruitment is that not a lot of vendors don't have or I'm sorry, growers don't have experience at farmer's markets, or they might only have a food that grows seasonally, like Ron was sharing about his peaches and nectarines. That if you're some markets offer a community table that will and there's two ways I've heard of having a community table one is actually offering spot for small growers or local herbs, or folks who have extra food from their garden or a fruit tree that's become ripe and they've got way too much before they before, before you know it gets too ripe and goes bad. And just creating a space where a vendor can come in and have a small amount and sell at a table that you've you've provided a tent you've provided and then they can come for the day. Or if it's a new vendor who's not quite sure if they have enough to sell at market or if they're going to be able to or what they're selling is going to be of interest at market that community table making it a lot available to them for let's say two markets they can get an idea of if their product is going to work at your market. And and then after that they have some time I'd like to be able to get their own market vendor setup together. The other community table setup I've heard about is actually having a volunteer who wants to run the community table. And then people can come in with their extra produce. And leave it there and it can be sold by one person and they name their price. And then they can come back at the end of market and and pick up the the portion of their sales, that takes a little more little more coordinating, and someone who actually wants to run the table. But I thought that was an interesting, interesting way to run a community table so that the vendor doesn't even or the reward doesn't even have to necessarily be at market. And I'm just going to stop there. And before I move forward and see if anybody had any comments or questions, or if I can dig deeper into some of these topics. Before we move on, yep, go ahead, Ron, I see your finger.

Ron M.  11:10
We, we have set up a community table. Nobody's taken us up on that at the VBAC winery. But I liked the idea that you had there was because I have a spare tin, maybe I set up a tent at the plant base and put a table out there and then have people ask me about this table, you can put stuff on this table and just, you know, talk to the people they come through, and then maybe they'll know somebody or spread the word.

Andrea Warner  11:39
Yep, that is what that's a great way to build the community table is to put up a sign that announces what it is and what people can use it for. And then they'll know it's there and available at market. And, um, and to me, maybe Tiffany can talk about this a little more, because she's been running the Community Table lately, we are in Silver City actually only charge $5 to set up at the Community Table for your first two times there. And so that also doesn't put the pressure of the full fee on the table, and it gives those new vendors a little more incentive to come. But then it also gives them a little bit of savings. So as they set up their community, or as they set up their full vendors, booths, they they got, they had a little break for the first couple times they came out to market because it is an investment to buy the tent and to buy the table. So you want to know that whatever you're bringing out to market is gonna, is gonna sell. Speaking of that, something else that's nice to remind new vendors is that people who come to market, a lot of them are a creature of habit, and they have their favorite vendors that they shop with. And it's really common, even if you have like a great table full of beautiful produce or something, you know, highly coveted at market to not see as much to not to not get as many customers your first couple of times at market and it is a long game building those customer relationships. And so just if people are feeling frustrated after their first market, new vendors, if they're feeling frustrated after their first market, just to remind them to stick with it, and that it's overtime that that those relationships will grow. Yeah, go ahead, Tiffany, I see your hand.

Tiffany  13:42
One of one of the ways that new vendors like you can encourage your new vendors to be that popular spot at market if they have a lot of nice things and people are passing them by because they quote unquote don't know them. Or they're, you know, timid to try a new vendor is to have a really nice display. You know, good tablecloths clean, fine, you know, lines or, or baskets or something that attracts the eye and says, you know, I, I take pride in what I'm displaying works a lot better for a new vendor than just a bare table with a pile of stuff on it. So helping your new vendors learn how to set up or how to create that. That showcase environment is important.

Andrea Warner  14:35
Excellent point. Excellent. And just another last piece to consider. If you have if you're starting a new market or you have a small market is to add crafts to your market and I'm just gonna say that with a caveat because we've seen farmers markets Start Up, be sure on produce or agricultural vendors early in the season, and add crafters and then they get a slew of crafters. And then all of a sudden your farmers market becomes a craft market. And so really curating those crafts can help you to make sure to help give some guidelines. So you're not just sending people away or accepting anybody who comes in, I was going to share our guidance guidelines for the Silver City farmers markets, vendor craft market, and it was really this number five that I wanted to share of the guidelines. Well, number four, work must be original nope, kits, it stays within that locally grown and grow it yourself idea, make it yourself, don't buy it online and just assemble it and bring it but I really like this guideline here. All work must have historic significance to farmers market such as hands, fun yard pottery would work. Or have subject matter of market scenes, fruits, vegetables, flowers, and so that way you, you have something in place to be able to tell a vendor who's selling something that just may not fit within the market, that you have these guidelines in place. And that's why their product is not not able to be sold out here. Tiffany, you have your hand up again. So I had

Tiffany  16:49
no you covered it, I was just gonna say cultural relevancy, or relevant to agriculture, like people building bamboo tomato cages or raised beds or, you know, something like that, that they want to sell at market is better than somebody is selling clocks.

Andrea Warner  17:08
Great, right. And right now in Silver City, there's a person who's I love this vendor that's been there with the bags that they're making upcycle cycle market bags, and so where you're upcycling might not be something that we see at market, the fact that it's a bag that you can buy to put your produce in, fits within these guidelines. And so it just also gives anytime you're creating guidelines, really making sure your guidelines say like this number one guideline here that says, chosen by management, just make sure that you're writing it into your guidelines, so that it says that you are making the final decision. Our other favorite my other favorite guideline for silver, in the Silver City Farmers Market guidelines says that it's up to the managers discretion to what's the two, I'm losing the word here, sorry, going off the cup to to enforce the guidelines. And so just giving yourself that ability to say this is the guideline and today I need to make an exception. And that is written in that I can so that you have manager it's just like I said, give yourself the last word in all of these decisions. Another something to consider is reaching out to local businesses and organizations. I've added here the email address for a map of all the local Extension offices in the state and ffh. The Future Farmers of America, four h and the Master Gardeners program, which are all agricultural programs are all run through the extension office. So by reaching out to your local Extension officer, you might be able to get in contact with these groups or local growers in the area. It's even just good to remind your extension officer that there's a farmers market because sometimes folks reach out to them looking for to open up more markets. That's that's a good first step to reach out to in your local community to find vendors. Another vendor recruitment possibility is any farming groups you have in your area. We have a permaculture group, a sustainability group and to be key per group in our, in our county here, as well as multiple gardening classes happening. So as those folks are going to gardening classes to learn how to garden, you, it's also you might be able to get a little plugin through the teachers that if they if they might think about becoming vendors at the farmers market as they learn to grow their garden. It's a great fundraiser for school gardens to come in and make sales. I was actually in Santa Fe Farmers Market two weeks ago and I bought some goat cheese, some cow green cheese and some bagels that are all made by the local Montessori school there as a fundraiser for their school. A lot of schools have school gardens now. And so encouraging the school to come out and sell some of that as a fundraiser. Some of what they're growing, if the kids aren't eating at all, is a great another great way to to find and recruit new vendors. And lastly, food businesses, especially ones that have commercial kitchens. That's another nice vendor recruitment possibility. Bakeries, of course, we had a juice shop come in, and they pre made juice with lids for a while and sold it at market when they were brand new. And that was a great way to let the community know they were there. And it was a great offering at market local restaurants or a local tortilla or tamale vendor, they might like to come out on a Saturday and have been that with that commercial kitchen, a food business that already has a communal, commercial kitchen, you're not bumping into those regulations. In the same way as a home. Someone who's making breakfast burritos at home might have a little more struggle with permitting to be able to come in and sell at market. So finding already established businesses is a nice way to find vendors. And Tiffany, you've got your hand up are you? Are you poor, I just want to make sure I'm not I thought it might be up from before but if you have any

Tiffany  22:31
old hand up.

Andrea Warner  22:34
And before we move on, oh, I skipped a page is. Now something else about when you're when you're thinking about vendor recruitment has to advertise. And I'm sharing this advertisement from that we just recently put out in Silver City for move that the market had. Because if you see this red circle at the bottom, this goes on all of our flyers, this was a newspaper ad as well. It's it says For vendor inquiries, and it gives the email contact of where your vendors can reach out. So this is also kind of that subliminal message. Someone might not even be thinking about being a vendor at farmer's market and they see your ad and they think oh, there is I'm gonna reach out and find out what it takes to be a vendor at farmer's market. You can also put all the information on your website, a whole vendor page on your website. I've seen a lot of farmers market websites who actually have their applications right there, you can fill them out online. And any other outreach material you have you can you can add that little hint at early in the season, you might want to think about putting an ad Facebook newspaper. Anywhere else you're advertising the market that you're looking for vendors. That's another good way to recruit vendors. And I just wanted to do one other separate plug here as we're looking at this flyer. And I've put a link down here for our market funding page. This flyer and newspaper ad was paid for by the promotional funds that the New Mexico farmers marketing makes available to your market as a as a member. And I just want to remind you because we're getting close to November when the deadline is to put in your your turn in your invoices and proofs of payment to get refunded for your promotional fun When you advertise, and that link there, which I'm hoping Allison will share with us, and we'll make available after we'll take you to the explanation of what it takes to what what you need for promotional funding. And so this flyer that we're looking at here, because we've added in our fresh new mexico local logos and our Double Up Food Bucks, logo there, this flyer, and newspaper ad fits within the guidelines to be paid for by those promotional funds. And so that was really helpful to be able to have those funds available. And again, it's $300 that your market receives every year plus $5. Extra for every vendor, agricultural vendor you. So depending on how big your market is, you may have more than $300 available. Okay. Is that your hand up again? Tiffany?

Tiffany  26:05
That's a new hand up. Okay. No, lower it. Sorry, guys. The training on here that you said preseason meeting where new growers or, or vendors can get trained. I just wanted to add, I mean, that's excellent. Something I hadn't thought of doing. But sounds like a great idea. Especially if you have producers that are canning vegetables or breadmakers or something like that, where you need to encourage them to obtain their food handler's certificate or talk to them about where they're creating their items. If they need a commercial kitchen, that would be a great time to do that, rather than once they start selling at market.

Andrea Warner  26:53
Yep, no, that's exactly. That's exactly why I put that here. Not only can you train, you can talk about you can you have that opportunity pre season to be able to talk to new agricultural vendors, you could even talk about what what's popular market and what maybe they should be planting early season, because if that they might not have thought of an opportunity to talk about Double Up Food Bucks and EBT and other programs at market, the opportunity for seasoned vendors to maybe get share some of their insights with new vendors. Right, it's an opportunity to talk about permitting. And it's just a great way to also just onboard those new those new vendors at market. Another pre season, the idea is to go to other events that are happening during the winter. And then do your vendor recruitment, get them get it in their head. That market that farmer's market is going to be happening in the spring and you're hoping that they can start planting to get to market. And I just lastly wanted to talk a little about vendor retention because as we were we can recruit as many vendors as we like. But it's keeping those vendors sometimes to can be hard at market. So I'm just like in that preseason meeting that we were talking about remembering to include your vendors and decision making. And so that preseason meeting is also a time that you can review guidelines with the vendors and see if they have any ideas or anything that didn't work for them the year before, so that you can start the season with fresh with maybe some fresh guidelines. And just having clear guidelines and clear expectations for vendors helps to retain them because they know what to expect. And they they understand that the rules are for everyone and that there's not vendors getting special treatment or they're not getting punished for something that isn't being asked of everyone else. And that application at the beginning for vendors it should have clear market rules of the permitting information that you were talking about Tiffany having that there to help them so that they can go and find those. Make sure they have all the permits preceding season and then also the liability expectations of the market do they need to have their own liability insurance is the market covered. Also getting them to sign a waiver? So the mark so not hold the market? responsible if there's an issue or the town and if you're on town property and I I've added another link here at the bottom, because that is the spot on our website where you can actually find examples of market rules permitting information and liability expectation expectations for vendors at our resource library. So feel free to go check that out to if you're if you're still putting together guidelines for your market. Or you'd like to see how other markets right have their. And lastly, is. And most important for vendor retention is vendor recognition. This was a lovely post that Scott shared with me earlier this week of a vendor spotlight that Carlsbad market but out. Thanks, Victoria, if you did this, it was a great example of, of how to keep vendors happy and feeling connected. I love this idea of just posting a picture of a vendor and letting them know that they're appreciated, and then letting the community know that they're there. You can bring out some new not only new vendors, but new customers this way. I want to go try what a call to that call, call that call that day.

Victoria  31:28
Yeah, it's, it's been a good turnout. So far, a lot of our vendors do like it. And I know that they appreciate it. And when they get to share it on their page, you know, their their, their people, their families, you know, cheer them on. So you can tell that they really liked that and take pride in that when we feature them.

Andrea Warner  31:47
Yeah, yeah, I believe it. That's great. Yeah, and that takes a lot. You know, we're busy as market managers, it takes some extra time to be able to do that. And so that was a nice touch.

Victoria  31:59
Oh, I love it. I saw that you guys used it. Oh, I see the loom. And now they

Andrea Warner  32:07
said sent your example today. Yeah, not only keep your recognition also remember that volunteer recognition as well is such a loving thing to do for our volunteers and our vendors who work hard when they come out and help us at market. That is that's my that's what I brought today to talk about vendor recruitment, I'd love to hear any questions or, or other ideas that anybody has hear about what they've done and what what they might might work or might not work for them.

Scott Knauer  32:51
I just got to commend you, Andrea, on the strategy of wording, the agreements for vendors to make it a really cure aidable, if that's a word, giving, giving market managers this extreme flexibility to kind of wordsmith and know when a market vendor is going to be a right fit. So kudos for offering that extra extra flexibility and kind of having that last word, but not it, there's nothing draconian about it, it just feels very community centric. So that was an awesome tip.

Andrea Warner  33:30
Yeah, of course, as as, as managers, we want to say yes, as much as we can. That's what we're there were there just, you know, make the vendors come, come comfortable and make the customers come to their role. And there are times I'm sure as all of you could share where you just have to say no, and it's nice when your guidelines and your your other market goers support you in that. Because it can be hard to say no to, especially to those vendors who want to come in and and you just have to say that's not worth that we're not doing that at market. It's nice to have it written down already. So you can point at it and say see right here.

Ron M.  34:09
Yeah,

Scott Knauer  34:10
a polite way of saying like, we also don't want you to the vendor to fail if this is not a good fit.

Ron M.  34:17
Right. I liked the idea of having a separate agreement for the crafts, because I actually have a generic one for I guess, just the produce vendors. And right now I have myself and one other person as a produce vendor, and then the rest are crap. And the fact that you have that I worried because I walked away for a second when I was listening, that you know, it was all geared to oh no, you can only do this. When I like that little caveat at the end where the manager say, Well, you know, I'll take you this time because it's my decision, because I've got this one lady and I don't know she's so unstructured what candy or something? What? I have no idea what it is really. But people buy it and she sells it. And she's a bit. Because we just don't have a whole ton of people. I guess if I had, if I was turning people away, then I'd get to a different point. But I'm like, yeah, she's not really what you expect. Oh, man, she makes money. So okay, I'll take her. Yeah. Go ahead.

Victoria  35:30
I really love the idea of having a meeting with our vendors, prior to the market season. I think that's something that Carlsbad could really benefit out here. Especially because, like y'all mentioned, so that they know what the standard is, and that there is no favoritism. And that, you know, there aren't any exceptions to the rule. So I think that's something that I may go ahead and pitch to our board of directors and our team to see if we could do that. Moving forward, I think our vendors would attend. And I think that they would like it.

Andrea Warner  36:04
Yeah, and there's just something about having that vendor buy in early season. And then especially like, even being able to vote on those guidelines work. When you happen. Sometimes there's a new vendor, who will say, Why do I have to do this? Or why do you do it this way, when you can point at every other vendor there and say, everybody here agreed on this before we started, that makes it just giving yourself that, again, like, not draconian we're not I'm not here as the bad guy who's here to tell you, you know, to, to make demands of you. We're all in agreement, because we're a community, we're all doing this together. And the Did you are you,

Tiffany  36:56
I just need to? Yeah, I just wanted to say that having those guidelines is it takes a lot of the pressure off the manager, I mean, it gives you the discretion to say, you know, I'm going to make an exception, or I'm going to accept you for a temporary time period, or like we have a winter market, we go year round in Silver City. So if we, if we accept more artists in the winter, they are accepted with the understanding that they may not be accepted during our high season. But having those guidelines to point back to and say, I'm sorry, you don't really fit the guidelines, takes a huge personal pressure off of you, when people are so wanting to be there.

Andrea Warner  37:44
Yeah, it's true, in that it's hard to be in that hot seat. So it's nice. Again, it's nice to have it all written down. And to let people know, early on when they first start that this is being able to hand them that whole packet, where they sign an agreement. And so then you can say, you sign this, you agreed to this at the beginning. So so when they're frustrated, people are always gonna get frustrated, and they're gonna want it to be different for them. And just being able to have those agreements is so helpful. A little extra work. But and in the long run, it makes it easier. I just want to point out in the chat here that Allison. So I actually did some research before our forum, and I found some wonderful resources online, through the Farmers Market coalition and through our own website, and there was one more market umbrella, I think it will it would be, I'll make sure it gets shared later. The other resource I'm not sure I see. Oh, market share, there it is market share. I just, I spent a lot of time looking at these websites. And not only is there a wonderful market, recruiting information, there's just like a wealth of information for market managers out there. So I did the research for you because I know you're all busy. But if you have a little extra time and you want to go look at some other resources, check out those links, if you remember to share the chat or to save the chat for yourself, if you want to keep them and if you don't share. Remember to save the chat. Like I said at the top of our forum. Scott has created a market manager forum page and you can go there and find the videos and all of the links that anybody shares. Allison has been dropping them in there for us. So it's a nice place to go back there. If you want to go back to if you want to find something that you saw here. Or if you have to watch the market manager forum later we're going to make sure all the links that are I mentioned are there on our website for you. I saw you waving around was that, uh, you have to drop off or was that uh, did you have something you wanted to share?

Ron M.  40:08
No, I was just saying by the Victoria. I guess it was.

Andrea Warner  40:13
Victoria had to leave. Yeah, by Victoria. Thanks for joining us. I know she's got market today I think

Ron M.  40:25
we just want to know if we got a couple of minutes, that's it. So the problem that I think that we're having, is we do have the V vac which takes the market we have the Black Mesa work market. And now it seems like there's three or four and towels. When I was just up there, little signs up. Pin Jasco has one now Cody has one Espanola has one it's like everybody and their brothers brothers sisters, you got a farmers market now is that I don't I'm just having a hard time getting more people. I mean, and now our season is really been kind of crappy overall, I guess you could say for produce people like myself, we didn't have rain for two months. And if you didn't have good shaky water, you're the kind of had a look for a lot of places around here. I mean, last year was floods hitty. So, you know, not only was it flood, which is bad, but it was a lot of rain, which was really good. We have lots of produce and fruit and everything last year. So I don't know if it's Tiffany or any of you guys, Virginia have ideas about trying to pull teeth in this kind of market

Andrea Warner  41:54
are all the different days, that was my first thought that different days of the week.

Ron M.  42:02
Yeah, I mean, we've got a, that's Wednesday and Friday for my two markets. And then the others are like on the weekend. And I keep, you know, I do Friday and Wednesday, Wednesday and Friday, because usually when I have a good year, I have enough for Wednesday, and then I pick again and have some Friday, you know, and it just seems to be that way for me. And I would do that if you would come to the Wednesday that you could do a Sunday, you know, in the same in the same respect. But you know, I can tell people that till I'm blue in the face, but you know, I can't take too much to the markets because, you know, if I take you know, I took like two tubs of grapes for the market Wednesday and threw a whole cup of grapes away. So

Tiffany  42:55
I feel your pain. We have we have 123 other markets around us. One is on Saturday, the same time our market is and the other two are on Wednesday one in the morning and one at night. And I have vendors that vendor at you know two markets a week. And and they're fine with it. But I also have lost some of my vendors that I had early on in the spring before these markets opened to those markets. The kind of the plus side of that if there is one is that they usually come back for our winter markets. And because there's those markets stop in October.

Ron M.  43:42
Interesting. Yeah, mangoes October so far. So

Andrea Warner  43:46
there's a group up in northern New Mexico, called the Northwest growers market alliances, and it was actually multiple markets that were all on different days. And they were not coordinating with each other. And they were all struggling. And what they actually did was they wrote and this is this is big. And so this this is just this is a big idea that can be scaled down. But they wrote one of these USDA grants, and they got funding to have a director for the Northwest growers Alliance and to also help support the market manager roles and they unified as a coalition. And so then it made it so all they were all coordinating with each other and making sure that the timing was right for the different you know small communities that they're in and that's worked out really well for them and I'm sorry we don't have Shane Toothless usually hear and they're one of the managers in that coalition and it would be nice, maybe one of our market manager forums will have to be Paulina path, always the name of that manager or The director of that coalition, I think that would be a really great market manager for him to get them in to talk about what they did. Because I think even in our Grant County area, Tiffany, you've heard me talking about this, that, yes, all the local markets working together, rather than feeling like they're competing with each other as if so many shared services you could have. So right, I didn't know if reaching out to the other markets and trying to meet would be something that you'd have the bandwidth for. But

Ron M.  45:28
yeah, I did work a little bit with the pin Jasco people because pin Jasco at one point, they lost the ability to have their market and wherever they were having it, and something about permits or something. And I posted, hey, I need vendors don't have a market, let's go. And then there's some of them. Some of the people took offense like, oh, that's inappropriate. I'm like, No, it's not inappropriate. I was like, well, it's not inappropriate, I'm just trying to offer you a spot because I know when I don't have a spot, if I have food, it just goes to the ground. You know, so you've got to do something with it. It's not going to keep forever. So the market manager and some of the other folks were okay, with the idea, you know, it's like, I'm not gonna keep them forever, I'm just gonna give hair have a week, you know, whatever. Like, I know, sign lifetime contracts with bottles, or anything, you know, whatever.

Andrea Warner  46:33
Yeah, that is a that's an interesting point. As a market manager, we learn different, you know, how how, competing, competing, because there's no competition in agriculture in New Mexico, there's not enough, right. But

Tiffany  46:50
the perception,

Andrea Warner  46:51
the markets, yeah, the perception and how to communicate, it's always best to reach out to a manager first. And we're learning it's only in Silvercity. Here, it's always best when the managers talk to each other because the vendors have different ideas than the news on on what's fair and what's not fair. So, yeah, that, but I think inviting other vendors in, who might be losing their market, that's a great vendor recruitment strategy runs.

Scott Knauer  47:21
plenty for everyone mentality, I'd love to hear from that alliance, just because I've always I hate that competition is so negatively charged in business, sometimes whether it's like our local food truck scene here in Clovis, they don't want to park near each other. They're very territorial. And it doesn't have to be that way. So I always love the story where they flip the script and show you the other side of what competition can do.

Andrea Warner  47:45
Yeah, I think that that we've been talking about throwing around different ideas of getting market managers involved in telling their stories here in these forums. And I think we just hit the the bullseye Scott, I'll do some reach, reaching out to see if we can have that happen before the end of the year here. So I would I haven't heard the whole story either. I would like to hear from them as well.

Ron M.  48:15
Well, well, that's just gonna make it real quick, totally off subject. When every time I see Scott, he reminds me of Josh gates, and it's this show. It's a TV show expedition unknown. And he's got a great personality, and it's just like Scott's personality almost. And if you watch him, he's funny and smart, too. And, but he's basically an Indiana Jones kind of person. So

Scott Knauer  48:42
I'm flattered. Thank you, Ron. It's so funny. I saw that in the chat. And I'm like, This is the second time somebody has called me Josh gates, so I can't remember who he is. So I guess I need to tune into his show and try to embody him even more. Maybe an extra cool hat.

Ron M.  48:57
It's a lot of people's minds. But you know, I'm just one of those guys. That comes up, it comes out. I used to have a friend of mine as well. And if it comes up and then they have to come out I'm like, Yes, it does. I love it.

Andrea Warner  49:13
We call Scott our our Tech Ninja around here. I think I'm going to start referring to him as tech. Indiana Jones.

Scott Knauer  49:22
Just need to hang

Ron M.  49:28
on. Well, I guess I got ups and my battery's going out in my hair. So I guess, Andrea, you are closing so I guess

Andrea Warner  49:37
that thanks for joining us again. Last Tiffany to

Tiffany  49:40
maybe we'll see you

Andrea Warner  49:45
next time.
 

Andrea Warner  0:00  
Welcome, everybody. Good afternoon as it is welcome. Thank you all for showing up.

today. As we wait for a couple more folks to arrive, we have our agenda up on the screen for you.

Thank you for coming to our market manager forum. for July, I can't believe it's already July. Seems like it was just march. We were all together in person not so long ago.

Unknown  0:30  
There, they were off away from us. This was what I wanted Sunday was brought to me.

Andrea Warner  0:37  
First, if everybody is able to mute their screen, if they're not talking, that helps us with background noise. And while we wait, we give folks a little more time. Let's all introduce ourselves and let everybody know where we're from and what market we're with. And I'd love to know,

the just, if you could quickly tell us like I said, your name the market you're with and how long you've been a market manager. That would be really helpful. I'll start I'm Andrea Warner. I think I know everyone here I'm the market manager liaison for the New Mexico farmers Marketing Association. And I also work in the nutrition incentives team with Double Up Food Bucks outreach. And my previous experience was market manager for the Silver City Market for four years. And I'm currently a board member with them as well.

And I'm gonna pass it to

Tiffany over here. I'm so excited. Our new Silver City Farmers Market Manager is here. Go ahead, Tiffany.

Tiffany  1:48  
I'm Tiffany. I am the Silver City Farmers Market Manager and I've been manager for four whole months.

Andrea Warner  1:55  
If you want to choose a name and pass it on, Tiffany.

Unknown Speaker  2:00  
I'll pass it over to Ron.

Ron M.  2:03  
All right, Can y'all hear me? Okay? So I've been market manager now for a month and a half. I'm at the Black Mesa winery. My previous experiences. I've been a manager for most of my life. And I just happened to be a farmer and a participant. And then they said, Here you go. All right, I'm going by kind of like that. So now I got a handoff. It wasn't that bad, but it's still quite an experience by the learning experience. And then let me throw it to Scott.

Scott Knauer  2:42  
Thanks, Ron. Good to see you again. Scott Knauer. Here I'm with the NMS ma as a marketing and technology specialist, joining you from downtown Clovis, New Mexico today. So good to be here. I will ask to Karen Bradshaw.

Karin B.  2:57  
Hey guys. I'm Karen Bradshaw. I'm the foot with the farmers and crass market of Las Cruces. I've been a manager for almost two years. But I have been a member. I also used to sit on the board of directors here for five years, I was in charge of operations. And I'm a former vendor as well. So and who's next? George? I see George, let's give

it to George.

Andrea Warner  3:24  
If you're if you're there and you can hear us. Let's try.

Claudia J.  3:28  
I'm Claudia Jeffery from the Sierra County farmers market. I've been on the board for five years in the market manager for two.

Courtney  3:35  
Hi, my name is Courtney. I am not a market manager. But I am currently a small scale farmer and vendor in Alamogordo, which is in Otero County. And we've been participating at the market here for the last two years. And I just hopped on so I don't know who's gone yet. So I don't know who to pass it to.

Andrea Warner  3:56  
I think everyone we have now is nmma staff who are presenting today. So how about well except Pearson Why don't we go to Kristen, who's our special and mfma guest.

Ron M.  4:08  
I'm just here to be a fly on the wall. I'm curious to know what the NMF from May and I run the fresher RX program. So I work closely with Sarah Thompson of double up and the nutrition incentives team. And several of your markets are doing freshforex This year, which I'm really psyched to see you all here. Let's let's pass it off to mark.

Please, Kirsten. Hey, everybody, Mark Chamberlin, marketing creative director within mfma have been here about seven months working out of Albuquerque. And much like Kirsten, I'm going to be mostly a fly on the wall. But I think the team has pulled together some great work that we're really excited to share with you. Jena, how about you?

Jena Marquez  4:48  
Hi, everyone. I'm happy to be here. My name is Jena. I'm the Digital Marketing Specialist here at mfma. And I've also been here since January. I'm excited to see so many faces Here, I think I've seen a couple before and a later forum, but super excited to show what we have planned for social media coming up. And always remember, I'm the person on the other side of Facebook and Instagram, if you're ever messaging or looking for someone, and I'm trying to get a picture up here, so you can see my face, too. Thank you. I will pass it over to Oh, awesome.

Alison Penn  5:22  
Thanks, Jena. Good afternoon, everyone. I'm Allison. I'm the Communications administrator at the end mfma. I've been here for about two years. Little over that. And, yeah, local food connects is a big deal. And we're really excited to share it with you. So I think the last person is George. George, did you want to tell us your name your market and how long you've been a market manager?

Speaker 7  5:46  
I have been a market manager for every day, it seems like and I want to quit the day. Let's see. So 2009 is when I started by the invitation, my lovely wife, and I continue the process. What else can say?

Andrea Warner  6:02  
Well, thank you, everyone. Like I said, Thanks for showing up. And being a part of our market manager forum today. I think we'll just let Allison and the marketing team start their presentation now. And then at the end of the presentation, we'll have time for questions. And regarding local foods connects month first and then if there's time, any other questions that that anybody would like to bring up. So with that, I'll hand it to you, Allison.

Alison Penn  6:37  
Okay, sounds good. Scott, can you take us to the next slide, please. And that was just some housekeeping. This call is being recorded. So we can share it with everybody who wasn't able to make it in lifetime, we've kind of covered everything else. So next slide. Let's go ahead and just dive in. So August is local food connects in a month, and in the second week of August, it's National Farmers Market Week. And we're going to talk about both of those things. We've been doing this campaign since 2017. And the whole idea is to saturate social media, newspapers, newsletters, all the things we write and put out and get people to your markets, your other local food outlets. And the reason we do this is really just to engage them to experience and enjoy local food. When people come in August, they get to see like the heirloom tomatoes, and the green chili and the melons. And they think wow, this is incredible. And it just keeps coming. And that's what we want for all of you, our members. And this campaign is easy to participate for you all. And you can download things from the weekly emails that are going to be coming out or you can just engage with us on social media, Facebook, and Instagram. And with our combined audiences, we're going to be amplifying and creating a ton of excitement for local food connects. And the theme this year is August is peak season and fresh food primetime in New Mexico. So there's no better time to get reconnected to all things local. Join us this month at your favorite Farmer's Market farmstand or local grocery store to celebrate a food, flavor culture and people that make our state one of the tastiest places on the planet. Next slide, please, Scott. So this is kind of a first look at some of the graphics and things that are coming out Mark made this so get your local on, we'll have another version of this and a video later on coming out. And we call these the announcement images, you're welcome to share these we'll be sharing these. There'll be in our newsletters, media, and in the weekly emails that are going to come out starting Friday.

Unknown Speaker  8:44  
Next slide.

Alison Penn  8:46  
And the whole thing that kind of launches this off is the proclamation from the governor's office. They've done this consecutively since 2017. So it's just nice to have that statewide recognition. There's a lot of great information in the proclamation that we share with new sources, and we can share it with you all as well. Next, please. And we also will be sending out a press release template that you can share with your local newspaper. There'll be more excited to pursue a story if you have, say, a market vendor that's been I don't know selling a lot of Double Up Food Bucks or a farmer that's been growing green chili in that region for like 200 years. They like things that pull them in and involve the community. So keep that in mind. If you do decide to use the press release template. We're also going to be sending out a media package to the major newspapers and TV stations. And that will give the media a head start and just knowing what's going on this month with with all of you all. Next slide. And that's really all of my portion of the presentation. But the largest and I would argue most important component is our social media. So I will pass to pass this over to Jena Marquez. Thanks, Alison.

Jena Marquez  10:06  
So here we have just a couple examples of some of the content. Just like the images that we're going to be putting out on our social media, Instagram and Facebook for the month for local food connects month, we had a great brainstorm and went through and decided that we would be putting out content in five different content pillars, so basically just like five different categories, I did an extra one here for us to see but so some of the things we're going to be highlighting will share a local food favorites. So you can see, the bottom three are just some good examples of some local food favorites that we have here that you can find at various markets, depending on you know, if you're at Northern market or southern market, but most of them are, you can pretty much find these at almost any market, some type of variety. We'll also be sharing stuff that high highlights local farmers. So we did just put out a local food guide, we have a great piece in there about the different types of farmers in New Mexico. And so we're going to be highlighting all the different types of farmers that we have here in our wonderful state here, I have an example of indigenous farmers. So kind of like a format like that we have women farmers, backyard growers, first generation farmers, we have a big list, we're going to be highlighting everybody, we feel that it's very inclusive, and will be really, really great for everyone to share on their Instagram or Facebook. Another thing we will be doing is kind of reasons, reasons to go to your local farmers market. Why, you know, that's kind of what we're all here for. Right? We want to get people to the farmers market. So we went through, we have some, I think it's 11. Right now we know there's way more but there's 11 that we feel are really, really strong to share that share that message of like community, why you should buy local and the strength in investing in your community. Here I have two little examples. One is a just like a small kind of little, it's not a quote, it's just like a little fact, why buy local, it's the yellow one with the three happy friends here at the market. And then we also have kind of more that are a little bit supported more by facts, and we kind of call those reasons to believe. So they're just they're just kinda like, reasons to believe why you should be shopping local and going to your local farmers market. Um, what else whatever, Oh, one other one that I don't have included here, but it will look very similar. As you're looking at these images, you can kind of tell they all have a logo, kind of like a little head headline and a description and a nice, great, vivid photo with them. The other one we will be including is fun and events in the community or in your market. So that's also another piece where I really encourage you as market managers. If you have time, if you only have time right now, put it in the chat. Let me know what's going on in your community. Let us know Allison does send out newsletters asking for events. I know it's hard to always have the time to kind of like, do that extra step of letting us know I do my best to search everything on social media. When I see something I always try to repost it if it's timely. And we have enough time sometimes I'll post it a couple days before to just make sure it gets visibility. But if you do share stuff with us, we do have room to include that in in our posts to make sure that we're getting it out there. I think like an example we shared today might be yes, you just moved. I've seen that one a lot. Tiffany actually, I've posted it a couple times, but I will actually I will be posting it again. So um, one of the things Oh, like an example today, if you look at our stories, I think I shared county fairs and they're just a county of county fairs that are happening by month. So I think I'm gonna use the car as an example because the crow is so active there's a lot of members in the community that message message us a lot. They I know yours is in like September I think it might be like Labor Day. Week is that Labor Day I was gonna Memorial Labor Day. But yeah, so there'll be sharing them by month, stuff like that. Also, if you have like people playing music, or just you know, something, you think that's like an extra that that would drive people to the market, we're always really happy to share that. And important stuff like if you've moved if you're at a different location, or times or dates. And then the next slide here that we're showing is kind of just for you to see like a it's a calendar, a top level view of how many times we'll be posting and when we'll be posting these types of posts, they might move around because we want to leave room for like I said, if you're sending us events or if you're you have something to share or somebody creates some content that we also want to share. We have some wiggle room to do that in a timely way so that it makes sense to the the time but this is about like how How much we wouldn't be posting. So they're just they're very simple just shows like The New Year grower, that was what I explained about, like our local farmers reasons to believe those 11 reasons, um, local food favorites, one that I didn't put on the Choose, we're going to be sharing a couple recipes, we actually have some really fun recipes that I'm really excited about. So I hope that those do get shared, Allison and I have been working on some really fun stuff. So hopefully those will get shared some local recipes and we're gonna do like a you can see it on there, there's a Khalifa is that we want posts that we want to do. So we're really excited to just like Alison said, saturate kind of social media with all of these images. And one thing to think about too, is like, it's okay, if people see these images, again, seen on social media goes so fast. So, you know, it really helps to create that sense of community with all of us if people are seeing these pictures or the information that for all the markets. So um, with that being said, Allison leads the newsletter, we will be sending out a newsletter with exactly like the posts that we showed in the previous slide, different ones each week for you to access and be able to just share immediately, you don't have to edit them, you can if you want to, if there's something you want to if you want to put your market on them. But I would encourage you to do that in the caption to make it even, you know, easier for you to just update, upload the picture, write a caption, and just have some things ready to go for your social media. And that's kind of all I have, I'm gonna go ahead and let it go back to Alice. And I think but I'm also here to answer any questions about any of this, when we get to the discussion. Thank you.

Alison Penn  16:45  
Okay, and this is just a little bit of the inspiration, some testimonials, things like that. This is a farmer in Santa Fe, and just a quote from her. That's what inspired the main theme for the images that we're putting out.

Unknown Speaker  17:00  
Next, please.

Alison Penn  17:03  
So now I'm covered, we've kind of covered local food connects in a month, which is all four weeks of August. But then the second week, it's National Farmers Market Week. And that's the most relevant to you all. And really what we're doing this year, is sharing what the Farmers Market coalition puts out. They this has been their campaign for 23 years where members we support and are sharing their stuff. So this year, their theme is Farmers markets are changing the way.dot.we Eat shop connect and more. So I would say use that as a prompt, how is your market changing things in your community? How is your market changing the way and that will that all of these resources will be in the second week email, and newsletters, social media, so on and so forth. Next slide, please, Scott. And these are just some examples of the branding and what the Farmers Market coalition puts out. The one on the left, the periwinkle blue one that was a story that I shared from the farmers market coalition just as an example of engaging with another campaign. So the Farmers Market coalition, they provide the theme, they have this giant social media toolkit that we sent out in our last newsletter. And I can send out again in the next coming newsletter, and it has all kinds of things. There's a planning timeline, there's social media templates, captions, facts and figures. It's it's a huge resource, and one that can be used all year round. It doesn't have to be just used for peak season.

Unknown Speaker  18:38  
Next slide, please.

Alison Penn  18:41  
And here we're at the end, I will pass it

Unknown Speaker  18:43  
to Scott. Thanks, Alison.

Scott Knauer  18:47  
I'm excited to share this little tidbit with you because this is a project that some of us have been working on. Since our team kind of convened for the first time back in January. And we were brainstorming, what's something that we can give vendors to get them excited to add some pizzazz to their booths. And we've come up with these really cool. We were kind of inspired by propelled Ocado flags that you see throughout the state during celebrations, but we wanted them to match some of the Double Up Food Bucks branding that you all are already doing around your markets and with your vendor booths. So these match so nicely. What we are sending out to you the best part of all you don't have to lift a finger we're sending these gifts directly to you as market managers and outlets throughout the state. You'll be receiving boxes with a set quantity of these wonderful, very durable strands of flags. They measure 12 feet in length. The content themselves is about 10 feet to span your typical 10 by 10 tent, and they're comprised of these really colorful panel flags that measure nine inches by nine inches. We wanted to make sure they were durable to withstand everything New Mexico throws at ourselves and your customers. The dirt, the wind. So these should last a few seasons. And we're just encouraging you to identify which vendors are going to be really proactive and receiving these and displaying them at their booths. We'd also love to see what these booths look like. So add that to the content hopper. If you have vendors that are taking pictures of their booths with these flags light up, we'd love to see them, please share them with us by emailing them over, or sending to Jena via social media. And we can't wait to see what you and your vendors do with these. These should be they're in production. Now. We should have them, hopefully any day now early August in distribution to get them in your hands. So we're hope you're excited about that. And that's all I have on these wonderful flags.

Unknown Speaker  20:52  
Thank you, Scott.

Alison Penn  20:53  
And the last thing I just want to tie this up, Fridays are the days that you'll receive an email with all these resources. So kind of thinking of that as like a check in day, see what we have to offer. And then you'll plan ahead for the next week. And those start July 28. So next Friday, so it's already here. I'll open it up for questions. Now. Does anybody have anything right off the bat?

Scott Knauer  21:18  
In all, just Prelude questions, some of you submitted questions while registering for today's event. We'll get to those. But we'd love to take questions on local food connects month first.

Unknown Speaker  21:34  
Harrison,

Ron M.  21:36  
I just wanted to let everybody know that part of the intention with those flags is also to increase the visibility of Double Up Food Bucks at your market. There's a big push going on, to try to raise visibility. And so those were kind of produced with double up funds. And we're really hoping that your double up vendors will will take to them. And I totally hear you, Courtney, we are working on tablecloths. We had the same thought for some of our markets. So Courtney, stay tuned. We were trying to think of other ways to bring some color and vibrancy to the markets, including tablecloths and, and other things that vendors can use, it probably won't

Speaker 7  22:14  
go away. Thanks, everybody. Is everybody.

Andrea Warner  22:18  
Sometimes at these market manager forums, we're not all Double Up Food Bucks market. So we all Double Up

Unknown Speaker  22:25  
Food Bucks markets here today. That's good.

Andrea Warner  22:30  
So I want to leave the the everybody's welcome at these market manager forums, whether you are or not involved with level

Unknown Speaker  22:37  
up. Thanks,

Andrea Warner  22:41  
Justin, for bringing that up. And were there any more? We're still looking for questions?

Ron M.  22:53  
I don't want to drop a question. But I did want to say that I appreciate the flags. I'm in two different markets. So it I think increasing the visibility is very important, because I've talked to two different people now. And they weren't map eligible. And they had no idea that they could use it at their farmers market. And so on one of them use it and the other one, if they ever get over their back for a while maybe they'll come visit and use.

Andrea Warner  23:28  
Thanks, Ron. And I don't think you were at our annual meeting this year where we put out all of the Double Up Food Bucks. Materials, we can get you some to your market. Like

Ron M.  23:44  
I was kind of late to the show. I was I was told early, but didn't quite get my head around everything until you know the first Did you so yeah.

Andrea Warner  23:59  
We'll get those resources to you as we can pursue

Unknown Speaker  24:11  
with that any

Andrea Warner  24:12  
were there any more questions about the presentations for the local food connects month in the farmers marketing week?

Alison Penn  24:25  
I have a question

for the market managers. I saw a couple of people throw things in the chat. Do you have any adverse events planned for the month of August that you want us to know about right now?

Unknown Speaker  24:40  
Okay, sorry, Andrea. What were you asking? Oh, Pam, we just wanted

Andrea Warner  24:45  
to say thank you so much to our marketing team. We've had a marketing Alison for the last few years and now we have a team and this campaign is really their. Their brainchild and It's nice to have more hands on staff to help. And I want to encourage everyone here to reach out if they have any questions, or tech questions or social media questions, because we really do have experts on staff now that are here and happy to help you. Jana Marquez, again is our social media person, and Scott is our resident Tech Ninja. And they're both reachable. And happy to work with you and answer your questions. I know they've worked with me a lot and answered a

Unknown Speaker  25:40  
lot of money.

Ron M.  25:42  
So I have a calendar, that's made out to October for the music at like Mesa winery. And that's one of our features. Plus, we have our, if they spend 10 bucks, they get an entry into a raffle, so they can win some wine and flowers that I usually have. And right now, Pete wave has not been kind to the flower part. But you want that I mean, certainly any more advertising I can get for free. I used to do that all the time with Facebook, and then they started closing all those doors. So

Jena Marquez  26:22  
yeah, of course we'd be happy to share. I know Alison also does like to share events in the newsletter too. So if you want the easiest way might be, I gave you our Facebook link if it's easy for you to message to me on Facebook, or send an email or even Instagram like those are three different ways you can reach out. Even if you if you want to. If you feel like posting it here, whatever is the easiest way for you to get it to us. We will definitely include what we can in in the newsletters and then on I can definitely post in the stories on our Instagram or Facebook stories we don't use quite as much but we are really active on the Instagram stories. I can definitely put that on there to have like reminders that pop up when you'll be doing events. I was just looking at your Instagram right now. Is it the Black Mesa?

Ron M.  27:14  
Well, there's a black, there's a Black Mesa cidery okay. And that's there. And then there's the farmers market and Black Mesa i We tried to change names to make all the names, book focus more on farmers market. But Facebook and Instagram were not. They weren't kind. They didn't want to allow us to change our name to what we want it to. So

Jena Marquez  27:42  
yeah, that's that's like a really annoying you got to make a decision and you can never change your mind again when you make a sale.

Ron M.  27:50  
Right. We did it you know, based on you know, years past we just we needed to take Black Mesa and move it further back but farmers market more in the prominent and whatever.

Jena Marquez  28:04  
Okay, so I know that we follow up Black Mesa winery, I want to find this Black Mesa farmers you said it's just called Black Mesa farmers market.

Unknown Speaker  28:13  
Let me let me

Unknown Speaker  28:17  
get the lake and I'll drop it to you.

Jena Marquez  28:19  
Okay, that's perfect. And I will get on there and see and follow you and I can also message you, you there too.

Unknown Speaker  28:26  
Okay.

Andrea Warner  28:27  
I just wanna There was another question in the chat from Pam, asking about where to send those events and Alison shared the emails where your market has events that you want to share with, with newsletters or social media, you can share them to the Allison or Jena's emails. And also for social media agenda do we have when I when I see something I'd like to draw Jena's attention to or mfma Social media attention to I'll actually link in a comment. Are AR and mfma handles, will you will you say those out loud Jena, if you're on Facebook, it's at.

Jena Marquez  29:23  
Yeah, I'll put them in the chat here. So they're labeled so it's easy for everyone to see them because they're kind of confusing. Sometimes. I'll label those in there. You're also feel free to like you can share send stuff to like in the direct messages. You can always send us anything you have. tagging us in a comment is a great way to do it too. And, and this is like so casual, you can message whatever, you know, respectful messages you'd like to send to us in our DMS. Um, I it's generally a faster way to get a hold especially like, you know, I know markets, most markets on weekends, not all of them but During the evening, so it's a fast way to get a hold of us if you need. We do have, we're pretty, I'm pretty quick on the messaging on Facebook and Instagram too. So I'll put them Facebook and Instagram handles here. And I'll put my email my email, as well. My number is on there too. The only thing that's what my number, it's fine to text me to Instagram is great, because I can see where your what your information is right away, it's easier for me to share exactly what you're trying to show me because it is such a visual thing. But if you need to text me something, that's okay, too. I'll put that information down here. And I also

Andrea Warner  30:39  
want to just slow it down here for any market managers who are not very social media savvy. There are no wrong questions here. If you'd like us to, to go a little more in depth in how to access us or use social media, this is a really great time and place to ask those questions as well. So if there's anyone who would like to understand a little more and isn't quite following, all of our buzzwords here are happy to answer those questions right now. Or, again, please feel free to reach out to any one of us. And we can help you if you'd like to be more active in social media and you're not quite able to get there on your own, please reach out because we'd really like to open those those marketing areas for your market as well.

Unknown Speaker  31:33  
That's the world we're

Andrea Warner  31:34  
living in now. Right. Yep, I see your hand. Claudia. Go ahead. And yeah,

Claudia J.  31:42  
we've been putting lots of pictures on on Facebook and sort of doing a vendor week. You know, kind of making fun? And lots of lots of photos. Well, of course, some of those photos have prices of the produce on there, which sometimes opens up dialogue that is, well, yeah, higher than Walmart. And it's like, oh, really just leave it alone. Is there a way other than not acknowledging it, what's what's the best approach?

Andrea Warner  32:23  
To respond specifically to that type of response?

Ron M.  32:27  
Yes.

Andrea Warner  32:28  
Is that this that local? I'm going to think about that for a second. But But when when we have, there's there's a hand piercings.

Ron M.  32:40  
Okay, just for fun, just for fun. Claudia, you might remember that one of our founders is Sarah grant. She's an amazing advocate for everything small farm. And one of her favorite things to say to people is you're so right, it's more expensive than Walmart. But as you know, but as you know, there are there's no such thing as a rich small farmer in New Mexico. So they're not getting, they're setting the prices they need to set to feed their own families. And thank you for supporting them. So this thing is rich, small farmer in New Mexico. There are other less flippant ways, but that's a Sarah grant kind of come back and she's used it for 35 years.

That's a much nicer way of seeing things. And I certainly

Andrea Warner  33:29  
I see Pam has her hand up their hand up as well go ahead, Pam,

Speaker 3  33:33  
you can also mention that it's, it's it's a lot fresher, and it's gonna last last a lot longer, and not go rotten, like some of the stuff in the grocery stores. And a lot of times it's you know, organic, and I needed to specify that if it is. So that's, that's the difference.

Ron M.  33:56  
And the money staying in your town. When you shop at Walmart, we're sending the money to Walmart, if you're if you're shopping a Claudius market, you're supporting Claudia's neighbors in your own neighbors. So those are some of the things our organization tries to home, being in everybody's heads over and over. Farmers are not getting rich, and the money stays local. And the quality is just there's no comparison. So you can pull any of those out of your hat and they'll still be people who complain I think

Jena Marquez  34:27  
we actually have like the we were talking about the reasons to believe also inquiry I'm assuming this is like on Facebook or Instagram where people are commenting this type of stuff to pictures that you're posting. I can share the reasons to believe document here and I think Allison it might be a great thing to share in our the newsletter maybe the first one that goes out because there's a lot of great responses to that that are very, you know, they're they're kind of safe and that they're giving facts and information just like information back instead of Nobody wants to like argue with, you know, a potential Farmers Market visitor or somebody on their social media. So it's nice to always just kind of come back with some some just like statistical type information to just present to why like these prices might be different. And they're very simple, like a couple sentence responses very aligned to what Kristin was saying, but I think they're very applicable to, there's a couple on there that you could that are very applicable to like a response for, for that response, so that you don't feel that you need to be to like it's and you're responding, you're not ignoring them, you're actually given them an answer back that other people can read and learn from too. So we can definitely share those. Because I think I think that that list has a ton of amazing reasons to support, you know, why shopping at your local farmers market is going to be more expensive than Walmart. And here's 11 Like really, really great reasons why. So I will go ahead and share that too, with you. And then just kind of touching on that communication in social media when people are commenting. Um, whenever you can respond or like, or comment or engage. That's really important. And it doesn't always have to be. I think just the engagement with the community is good. So that it's really nice to hear you say how can you respond to that, Claudio? Versus just like kind of ignoring it and not not giving it a response? So yeah, we'll send you some tools for that as well, too. Thank you. That was a really great question.

Unknown Speaker  36:37  
Jena, can we

Andrea Warner  36:38  
include you in when there's a on social media? When there's a comment like that? Well, you jump in. And

Jena Marquez  36:47  
I mean, like I said, you're always free to message me like, if you want some, if you want to ask me for a response, I'd be happy to send you like a quick little type of that you can copy and paste that refers it will probably refer right back to that. Because that's that's generally how we would respond to yeah, like I said, I'm always available. I wish people would DM me more, I get bored. Sometimes I'm like, can somebody message me on here about anything? No.

Claudia J.  37:14  
Can I ask one more question? Yes. So I had another there's this truck that's going to show up in tear see at the parking lot at the Tractor Supply that's going to be selling me cheap. And it says that they can take snap money. And so of course, everybody is a professional, they know everything, right? And the first comment there was, well, you can buy meat at the farmers market, and I'm going you and you get your double at bucks you can spend with me at the farmers market. And I'm like, no, no, guys, you can't do that at the farmers market. You can, you can, you're not going to get double bucks to spend at the farmers market for me. But you can take that money and use it for fresh fruits and vegetables. And then somebody else gets on there and says, Well, you know, we the farmers get a stipend from snap for taking their money. And I'm going no, nope, that's not so not true that they become snap. They that you have to go to the farmers market manager, you have to get the snap coins, the coins from from the manager and they take the coins are then given to the customer and the customers and spinning them and then the farmer brings the money back but there is no stipend so really short version of what that does. Might be nice to

Andrea Warner  38:57  
I'm sorry, I missed what who does I missed that cut? A short version of what I missed, I missed the

Claudia J.  39:05  
well just, you know, I sat there and and responded. And it took me 10 or 15 minutes to finish his this guy who knew everything about everything, correcting him? No. Is there something in writing that talks about? That short and sweet and to the point? Or should I just continue to I you know, I know, dude, you really don't know what you're talking about. But let me help you. This, this is exactly what we're doing. And I was kind and polite and professional, you know, et cetera, et cetera. But this guy just was totally convinced that he that I didn't know what I was talking about. I'm going but I'm the manager of the market and I do know what I'm talking about.

Andrea Warner  39:53  
Yeah, correcting people who are wrong on the internet is one of my favorite hobbies. So and you But I what what comes to mind, Kiersten is the comic strip that we have that that we'll be sharing here shortly as well with our Double Up Food Bucks materials this year. And that's a really nice way, I'll send you one of those Claudia. That's a really nice way to show how the program works really quickly. And Sadly though, sometimes just correcting people who are giving misinformation is the way to handle it. And but

Ron M.  40:32  
in your free time, because we all have so much of it, you might want to go to a USDA website, or a specific snap website and steal some wording right from there, copy and paste it keep it on hand for some of your biggest snap or USDA type, because snap is run by USDA, right. So there's information about Snap at the USDA at the USDA websites. And there's probably I know there's some snap Ed websites and you know, spend 1020 minutes on those and to steal their wording and that way, you're not getting anything, we're not getting anything wrong, right? We're getting it 100%, right? Keep it somewhere, write it down, zap it back to folks, or send them a link to the website and say check it out for yourself. You know,

Andrea Warner  41:14  
that's a great point, our website also has really and then we have our new Double Up Food Bucks, New Mexico develop new mexico website, and the farmers market Coalition who has created this campaign for the for the National Farmers Market wheat, I've been spending a lot of time on their website recently. They have amazing, amazing resources for farmers markets on there, I recommend all of these managers here, when you go look at your New Mexico, your the National Farmers Market Week, information that they've put out, go look at their website. Today, I was listening to farmers market blogs, I'll share all of that with you. We're market managers, we're having very similar to what we're doing here. It was quite interesting. George, you had your hand up and Mark, you also I think Mark, you had your hand up. And then I saw George with his hand up. Did

Speaker 7  42:07  
you have a small question or comment rather than the question? During the little trainings that we have, and also the little booklets that we hand out, here's a little blurb, what you can do and what you can't take for what produce market needs, whatever is listed on there as for which coins can be used. There's never any mention of any stipend going to any buddy else other than the stipend of double up your food bucks. If you're a Double Up Program units, it's it's really simple. There should not be any kind of confusion on that. And that's a great point.

Andrea Warner  43:01  
I there is that, that is a great point. It also always pointing people back to how it supports community and how we support farmers. Something I like to remind folks about as well is that our big egg folks, they get substitute subsidies from the government corn and wheat. You know, a lot of that food is subsidized. I see Double Up Food Bucks is how we subsidize our local growers. We can make the food more accessible to people keep and make sure that they get their price.

Unknown Speaker  43:35  
Thanks, George. That's a great point.

Andrea Warner  43:38  
Mark, did you have your you had your hand up earlier? And I see it's down now. But I wanted to give you an opportunity to

Ron M.  43:46  
I just wanted to add that we have recently released this local food guide. And it essentially is one big, as Jena mentioned reason to believe like why supporting local food, your local farmers spending your money in state. And not just from a purely utilitarian standpoint. It's like the experiences that you can get in the markets, the people that you meet in the markets. And yes, it's it's reducing your carbon footprint. And yes, it's good for the economy. But if you guys would be interested in having these on hand in your market, we can we can send some of those out to

Andrea Warner  44:28  
all markets should have received it. Is there anybody here who hasn't received a box of 300 local food guides yet? Yep. I think everybody here has received those. And another, more kudos to the marketing team for creating a local food guide for us this year. Yeah, that was a big Venter. And these are the folks who put it together for us.

Ron M.  44:53  
Oh, great. Scott just actually posted a link to it online which we just we just got as well so you could actually even forward that link on to somebody if they're asking why buy local. So that's all. Thank you. Thanks.

Andrea Warner  45:09  
there any other questions? We have about 10 more minutes and our monthly forum. And I'd love it if you bring your burning market questions here so we can help answer them.

Scott Knauer  45:21  
There was a question in the registration submissions, I believe it was from Courtney was asking for some more information and educational materials on nm grown if somebody wanted to speak to them. That's right.

Andrea Warner  45:34  
It was the approved supplier program. Courtney, did you want to elaborate on that question for us?

Claudia J.  45:41  
Or we can? Sure, um,

Courtney  45:46  
I'm actually a part of the New Mexico Grown program. But one thing that I have noticed since we've started our farming slash market gardening journey, is that in the area that we're located, there's just not that much knowledge about the New Mexico Grown program. And there's only our farm and one other farm here that are part of that program. And in general, there's not that many growers here at all. And I wanted to figure out, really, I wanted to figure out ways to help kind of like spread the word or let consumers know about the New Mexico Grown program, but also connect with like our local school district and the preschools and the senior center, because I've tried calling the school district to talk to them about it, but it's like, Who is she, you know? And so I was wondering, like, how to be able to get our school district to connect with people from the New Mexico farmers Marketing Association, so that they can learn more about the New Mexico gram program as well.

Andrea Warner  46:53  
That's a great question, Courtney, we have a whole other team. And they're not right now we're market side. So we're in our farmers market with our managers here and then New Mexico grown is more on our grower side. And so that team is the Mexico grown approved supplier team. We'll send you their email Alyssa Pisano is the I'm sorry, Elena Pisano is the is the director of that program. And I know that she's been going around the state actually your Did you say you're in Otero? So we're going to be having I guess you're kind of far from Grant County. I know. And I think Jena posted the list of places where they're going to be doing some outreach meetings across the state. I know in August, we're gonna have one here in Grant County. And so we'll put you in contact with the New Mexico grown team because I know they would love to hear exactly what you just shared and help you brainstorm ways to get involved. Jena, you have your hand up? Yeah, I

Jena Marquez  47:56  
was going to I'm looking for the flyer right now. I'm actually on the New Mexico groan coalition as well. So I I am more than happy to share with you. We are having a couple of regional networking events. I don't know off the top of my head, what's going to be closest to Alamogordo. As Andrea just said, we do have one coming up on August 22. But it is in Silver City. And I know that's like about two hours away from you. We were literally literally having this discussion. As we were planning this meeting this week about regionally what makes sense for everybody. But we do have one plan for that area, I believe all posts what we have so far. We also have Yeah, we have those events coming up. So I'll post the flyer and I'm happy to connect you afterwards or if you have questions as

Speaker 7  48:44  
well, to talk with you. So thank you.

Andrea Warner  48:50  
Thank you that George was sharing his New Mexico grown with tradition. You want to share that with us again, George put that up for us. Now this is different than the New Mexico Groden but this is a campaign that has been launched through the NMDA again, it's a logo program. And you this is something that you can through NMDA and I think that Ellison didn't you link to it in this month's newsletters didn't you? Yeah Are you can sign up and receive logo. This looks like a sticker. George has I know they have bags and other nice swag for for free for vendors who are part of the tasty tradition program.

Speaker 7  49:36  
What the program is, I don't know whether you can get into this zoom on that little thing too. scandalous. But it's an invitation for a relaunch of this new program. Relaunch section it's a it's a relaunch for the moon logo and the entire program actually. So if you can enlarge that, and that way anybody that wants to scan it, they can.

Andrea Warner  50:12  
I don't know if we can see that George, but we can definitely get a link to the

Ron M.  50:18  
granulator granulated for my computer to do it. Not George.

Speaker 7  50:24  
Well, in any case, is with a new, nice the Department of Agriculture. And you can apply alphabet Elevate, and M mag.com. It's really a simple process to get into you, right, they have all sorts of little things, if you're proud of what you go. And you want to put some of these stickers on your area of the table, or stack the stack in a paper bag that should give out with your groceries, you can do that. They have all sorts of little things that you can use. They have produce bags, which you can buy by the rolls. It's really inexpensive process. It's a great, George, we

Andrea Warner  51:29  
put a link, we have a link to it here for folks to check out. We have about five minutes left. Yeah, thanks for sharing that. I just wanted to say at see if there's any one else who I see we've lost some of our folks here. Um, if there's anyone else who is interested or has a question that we can answer at this time, or you can drop it into the chat and we can get back to you via email. Thank you everyone, for attending any of our our and mfma folks have anything they want to close us off with hear about Mexico grown months, or

Alison Penn  52:11  
I just want to echo thanks for being here. And we look forward to celebrating this with you all in whichever way you choose to do feel free to reach out to us at any any time.

Unknown Speaker  52:20  
Thanks.

Andrea Warner  52:21  
Thanks for all the links in the chat. And if you'd like to save all of that information from the chat, something I always forget to do. I'm going to do it right now. How do we who can help us have save? How do we save the TAT I've forgotten. There are

Scott Knauer  52:40  
three dots down along the little toolbar in the chat window, you should be able to click that and say save chat, which I do right now. I'm also the person posting this to YouTube where you can circulate it to your colleagues and peers that weren't here today. I'm trying to get a little more savvy with saving the transcripts and the chats and all the resources and bundling them up into one place where you guys can get at that conveniently so a continued work in progress and try to make that easy for everyone. But thank you all for the great conversation personally speaking I want to say I can't wait to see these flags, hanging out your your vendor booth so please take some snapshots for us.

Andrea Warner  53:19  
Thank you all again for joining. We'll see you next month. Keep an eye out. We'll be sending the dates and the times and the topic out here shortly. Get us on the calendar.

During this Market Manager Forum, we dive into the GoodFoodNM program, specifically focusing on farmers' markets, farm stands, and CSAs. We discuss new materials available for this season, including laminated posters and postcards. The posters come in English and Spanish and can be used across different outlet types. The postcards are smaller and cater to specific outlets. We also touch upon the digital files available for web use. We explore signing up for GoodFoodNM through texting or scanning a QR code, with options for language preference and outlet selection. The video highlights the benefits of using custom text messages and outlines guidelines for crafting them. We provide tips for utilizing the outreach materials to encourage shoppers to sign up for GoodFoodNM.

May's presentation for farmers' market managers is "Opening Day: How to Successfully Kick Off the Farmers' Market Season by Boosting Social Media Skills and Utilizing Your NMFMA Member Benefits."

Meeting transcript coming soon.