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Want to Sell Our Pasta?
How We Came To Be In Farmers' Markets
It wasn’t until nearly ten years after we began making fresh pasta that we began learning the fine art of drying pasta. One of the original co-owners, David Bowen, learned this art form from a friend who was selling a few of his own dried pastas at a small, local farmers’ market in Cherry Creek, Denver. At the time Cherry Creek Farmers’ Market was a new and relatively unknown market, and like elsewhere in the United States, farmers’ markets were not a popular destination as they are today.
In 1991 Pappardelle’s took over making the dried pastas for this friend for his farmers’ market booth. But after a few years this friend started a new job and left us with finding someone to continue selling our pasta at the farmers’ market in Cherry Creek. We knew we had one of the top sellers at the market and didn’t want to let this opportunity slip away. Bill, the other co-owner, approached a local bread vendor at the market about picking up Pappardelle’s line of flavored dried pastas. They agreed, and so began Pappardelle’s official entrée into its special farmers’ market niche. Today, Cherry Creek boasts daily Saturday crowds as high as 15,000 and is one of the best markets for Pappardelle’s products.
From our start in 1984, Pappardelle's Pasta Co. has been creating this nation's most exquisite pasta and serving it to the finest hotels, resorts, and "white tablecloth" restaurants. They remain our primary customers to this day. You can read more about this in About Our Company.
Why We Work Well At Farmers' Markets
And why does the farmers’ market arena work especially well for Pappardelle’s Pasta?
A couple of reasons. First, and foremost, it begins with our core philosophy: pasta products and sauces made the old-fashioned way, with the finest quality and a variety of flavors and shapes that most people have never seen. Second, it requires a vendor and sales staff dedicated to educating the consumer about what makes our pastas special and what are the creative ways that the unique flavors can be prepared and served.
In other words, it takes the right vendor to present and describe our products, or as we like to say, “to romance the customer.” Once they try our products,
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Click Here: Farmers' Market Slideshow
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they’re sure to come back to try other adventurous flavors and to tell their friends about us.
That’s why farmers’ markets are such a perfect place for Pappardelle’s products. With a simple 10x10 booth you can display up to 33 varieties of pasta on the table. With a 20x10 booth, you can show over 50 varieties. Think: candy store! The rich colors of the pasta draw in your customers. You and your staff are integral to teaching and enthusing your customers. And the taste and variety keeps them coming back for more.
Expanding Our Business
In the past 5 years, we have grown from 3 Farmers’ Market vendors in Colorado to over 30 select vendors in over 15 states, including California, Florida, Georgia, Iowa, Illinois, Kansas, Louisiana, Maine, Maryland, Missouri, Nevada, New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania, Texas, Washington and Wyoming.
Click here to see a list of our current markets.
Although we would like our products to be readily available, we are not looking to expand "just anywhere." Every person who approaches us must first go through our qualifying interview, establish a positive relationship with their farmers’ market and work with us to insure that Pappardelle’s products will be represented with the same standards of quality and integrity that goes into making the products themselves.
Our Farmers' Market Program
If you find a viable market and we decide to start doing business with you, we offer a fairly complete turn-key program to help you get started and we provide you with ongoing support. Here are some of the materials you will receive from Pappardelle's. In creating a "farmers' market program," we devised an initial package of information to help you decide if selling our products is right for you and to help you to determine what you'll need to get started. It includes our operating guidelines, a sample first order, some tools to help you to determine your investment, revenues and costs, and some additional practical guidance on what equipment you'll need to get started with your own Pappardelle's booth and how to go about getting space at the markets you want to be in. We believe this package will answer most of your initial questions and give you a clear framework for determining what it will take to own and operate your own Pappardelle's booth.
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We have developed other sales tools to aid in your success. After you are accepted as one of our vendors, we provide you at no cost with online access to our 200+ page sales manual filled with helpful sales information such as a complete history of Pappardelle's, in-depth product information, copies of recipes for each of our products, checklists to take to your markets, a spreadsheet method for tracking your inventory and consolidating your product orders, and many pages of helpful selling tips gleaned from our direct experiences as well as compiled during the last 10 years' from our different vendor's
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selling Pappardelle's products at farmers' markets. We will also send you our occasional electronic newsletter which will include ongoing developments, the newest tips from other vendors, more details about our featured product and usually a few new recipes.
And, of course, we have created and manage this website, in part for your direct benefit. This allows potential customers to find you, and with our up-to-date, ease of purchase e-commerce functionality, your transient customers (such as the vacationer in town for only a short while) can continue to buy Pappardelle's products when they leave your area and your regular customers can purchase any products which you choose not to carry and can also have a place to purchase once you have closed for the season. The nice thing is that even though we bear the cost of maintaining this site and providing the necessary order fulfillment services, we share with you a portion of every internet sale to one of your customers. This way, your customers have a way to continue to buy a product they love when they're not able to get it from you and you have a way to realize residual sales from them in situations where there would otherwise be a "lost" sale.
In September 2004, we brought on board a person dedicated to helping you through the process of starting your own Pappardelle’s booth. As we stated before, we want everyone we do business with to be a success!
How to Get Started
If you are interested in becoming a vendor for Pappardelle’s Pasta, please complete our initial inquiry form.
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