4 Tips to Sweeten Sales

Photography and styling by Laurie Mosco

Nowadays tourists and locals visit Farm Stands and Farmers Markets not only to satisfy their lust for local produce, dairy, eggs, and homemade goodies, they are eager for an experience. Candy displays bring on the smiles and offer customers a memorable adventure with bushels of old-fashioned fun. Plus candy and nostalgic brands can help grow your business, all while helping you stand out in your field.

Creating a cream of the crop candy display doesn’t require a big investment, or a degree in design. Just a little imagination and some tasty treats and you’ll be creating a-maize-ing displays in no time.

All puns aside, (kidding we love puns) plow on to read 4 tips to spark your imagination and turnip the volume on creativity.

1. Produce Packaging Pulls Double Duty

Produce packaging you have on hand for berries, or metal buckets with scoops create an organic style. We recommend filling these containers with juicy, fruit shaped bulk candy like Clever Candy 3D Gummy Fruit Mix, Clever Candy Sour Twin Cherries, Sweet Watermelon Slices, Jelly Belly Raspberries and Blackberries and Clever Candy Gummy Peach Rings. Be sure use food-safe acetate bags or other food safe wraps before you add to the burlap, bucket, or bushel basket. If your customers are partial to wrapped candy offer mouthwatering hard candies with fruit-themed wrappers like Nassau Candy’s Strawberry Delight. Remember to package all bulk candy in a food-safe container or package before placing into these old fashioned containers to maintain their freshness.

2. Incorporate Natural Elements

We don’t need to tell you that a major appeal of farm markets is that “just-picked,” natural look and feel. Incorporating packaging with natural elements like burlap sacks, mini wooden barrels, or even bushel-style baskets will help give the impression your confection selection is straight from the farm. Just make sure to pack these goodies in a food-safe container or wrapper before adding to a sack, bucket, or barrel.

Beyond natural packaging, utilizing natural surfaces to display your goodies is another way to convey wholesome freshness. Stacked wooden crates are easily transformed into makeshift shelves that won’t detract from the natural packaging or fun products. Milk crates work well too, so again, not a major investment to create farmhouse chic.

Note: any candy stored on wood needs a barrier in between to help prevent splinters from piercing the packaging.

3. Nostalgia is a Powerful Marketing Tool

You’re no stranger to tools – use this easy marketing tool to your benefit. Beyond the promise of a bounty of fresh, wholesome produce, customers love the nostalgic feelings a visit to a farm stand or roadside market provides. We can’t repeat it enough, nostalgia sells. So, taking customers down memory lane is as simple as a display of rare, hard-to-find, and nostalgic sodas, old time candies, and goodies presented in vintage-inspired packaging.

Gleaming groupings of glass bottles sporting rich labels and retro lettering need no elaborate merchandising.  The uniqueness of the product speaks for itself.  A display near your register is the perfect impulse opportunity to quench the thirst for the warm and fuzzy feelings of yesteryear. 

4. Back to Basics with Branded Displays

Anything but basic, retro style racks and displays add an instant wow factor!  Many manufacturers offer specially designed displays to showcase their confections.  Simply purchase and place, although some may require some simple assembly.  The instantly recognizable candy stick display from Gilliam with its wooden shelves and clear jars are reminiscent of an old general store filled with a rainbow of candy sticks in a cornucopia of flavors.  Another great option (which we love a bushel and a peck) is the display from Farmer’s Popcorn Cobs. This fun snack comes with its own bushel basket display, which fits seamlessly with farm themes and nostalgia.

Still want a simpler option?  Offer a selection of confections and nut mixes in acetate containers like those from Nancy Adams and Maple Valley Farms. Simply stacking the containers together creates a display full of color and texture, with no fuss.

Farm stands, roadside markets, farmers markets, and u-pick farms are more than a place to purchase the week’s groceries.  They’ve become a travel destination. By merchandising with unique packaging and offering candies, snacks, and sodas that are hard to find anywhere else, you’re reinforcing the feelings of charm, exclusivity, and freshness.