At Farmers Markets, Bigger Yields

The kid in the huge booth at the Torrance Farmers Market, with his spiky bleached hair, baggy shorts and an Abercrombie & Fitch T-shirt, hardly looks the part of a new wave of agricultural entrepreneurs.

But Shaun Rosendahl, whose sunburned face belies his 21 years, will sell more than $10,000 worth of apples, strawberries, cherries and other fruit on this day in Torrance, at just one of the 44 booths at farmers markets he manages this time of year from his Hermosa Beach apartment.

After five years of packing, hauling and peddling fruit from his family’s Fresno County farm to markets across the state, Rosendahl now makes enough to support a refrigerated warehouse and a small fleet of trucks and to pay four supervisors and a small army of hired hands.

Along the way, he’s helped reverse the sagging fortunes of Rosendahl Farms, once one of the state’s largest fruit-growing operations. Although at 650 acres it is just a third its size of 15 years ago, Rosendahl Farms is a giant among farmers market suppliers. The key to its survival now is to sell by the pound rather than by the ton.

“When we sell direct, we don’t have to pay a sales commission, there’s no packing fee and there aren’t five middlemen between the farmer and the customer,” Rosendahl says. “If every farmer could sell retail, farming would actually be a good business.”

No longer a weekend sideline for large growers looking to unload excess produce, the expanding network of Southern California farmers markets gives growers the chance to survive and even thrive in an increasingly competitive market.

Although some large growers caught on to the profit potential of farmers markets years ago, more are just now joining in. And the big growers are beginning to expand their offerings significantly, making it more difficult, small growers say, for them to make a buck.

Larger shippers such as Rosendahl claim they have every right be there. They say times are tough for farmers of all sizes. By selling their 232 varieties of produce directly to consumers, Rosendahl says they can avoid the high costs of packing and shipping when prices for many farm commodities are at near-record lows.

“It keeps the wolf from the door,” says Fred Kosmo, who grows golden Fuji and other apples on his 400-acre property in San Luis Obispo County and peddles them at 14 Southland farmers markets with his wife and a couple of helpers.

Farmers markets have even supplanted commercial packing as the main source of income for some of the state’s farms.

Just by loading up a truck and bringing it to the people, growers such as Kosmo and the Rosendahls can command an estimated 40% to 80% more for their crop, often selling their produce for more than the retail price charged by big supermarket chains.

The crisp Granny Smith apples, for instance, that Kosmo Ranch sells to a local packer bring in only about $12 for each 40-pound box, barely enough to break even after picking, packing and commission. The same box would go for $40 at a farmers market, more than enough to pay a couple of hourly workers to staff the booth and cover the cost of gas and such other expenses as market fees.

By using organic farming methods, growers such as Kosmo can push prices for their crops even higher. And the best place to find customers for organic produce is at farmers markets.

Direct marketing is one of the few antidotes that economists and government officials can prescribe for struggling small-to-medium-sized farmers who have too much invested in farming to switch careers but aren’t large enough to compete effectively in the global marketplace.

“Even medium-sized growers are now feeling the pinch,” says Desmond Jolly, a professor of agriculture and resource economics at UC Davis. “To stay alive, they’re going to have to go direct to consumers.”

But as large farms have expanded their presence at California farmers markets and widened their offerings to include dozens of varieties of fruits and vegetables, smaller growers have suffered.

“Twenty years ago you just saw farmers like me at the farmers markets,” says Vickie Bernard, a Riverside grower who owns 50 acres of orange and lemon trees and sells at markets as far away as Santa Monica.

“Now there are much bigger companies in there, and packing houses. I don’t sell as much as I used to.”

California now has 341 farmers markets, with 5,000 participating growers, but the state does not track sales or income. By all estimates, though, the Wednesday market on Arizona Avenue in Santa Monica is California’s largest, with 96 growers generating a total of about $80,000 in sales. Growers here gross an average of $900 that day, but some, such as cut-flower sellers, make as much as $6,000, says Laura Avery, who supervises Santa Monica’s four markets.

The widening array of crops offered by some large farmers has also sparked speculation that many aren’t growing everything they sell, as farmers markets rules dictate.

Certificates issued by county agriculture commissioners in the areas where the crops are grown are supposed to verify what and how much each grower is producing, right down to the acre.

But, Avery says, it’s hard to tell if packers are selling their own fruit or someone else’s, and often-lax county oversight allows growers to buy up fruit at wholesale markets and mark it up. And she has caught more growers trying to circumvent the rules in the last couple of years.

“Now we ask a lot of questions. We no longer take the [certificate] at face value.”

Shaun Rosendahl says everything his family sells is grown on various properties they’ve bought and leased in Fresno.

Indeed, over the years, he says, they’ve re-engineered their farm, which at one time consisted mainly of raisin grapes, plums and berries, to include hundreds of acres of items that food aficionados prize most, such as Asian pears, white-flesh peaches and apricots.

They’ve also bought a refrigerated warehouse in Torrance to store their fruit, hired supervisors, taken on 30 full-time employees for the summer and are launching an electronic storefront on TheAgZone.com to sell the 16 varieties of fruit they dry in their dehydrator.

In coming months, Rosendahl says, they’re also going to spring for an $80,000 juice press and flash pasteurizer so they can sell more expensive fresh-squeezed juice at their farmers market stands.

There’s nothing in state or county rules to prohibit large growers such as the Rosendahls from selling such a wide variety of products once they’ve set up shop in a market, although such markets as Santa Monica have restricted them from selling more than just a handful of their more popular items, such as cherries and blackberries.

“They do tend to flood the market with a ton of fruit, but they’re not in violation of any specific rule,” Avery says.

Ironically, Rosendahl and the other larger operators aren’t much cheaper than other vendors. Most of their fruit sells for $2 a pound--no huge bargain by any means. But they use other tactics to lure customers, such as handing out samples and recipes for each commodity and making sure they have enough staff to chat with customers.

“It’s not about the price, it’s about what kind of experience you’re giving the customer,” Rosendahl says.

Back in the early 1980s, when Rosendahl’s grandfather, Don, was Fresno County Farm Bureau president, they wouldn’t have bothered with farmers markets. They dried the raisin grapes and plums grown on their 2,000-acre farm for such marketing giants as Sun-Maid and Mariani.

But mid-decade, financial disaster struck when supplies swelled and the farm price for raisins plunged from $1,500 to $500 a ton.

With bankruptcy looming, the Rosendahls sold off two-thirds of their land for a fraction of its original cost. Years later, business started rebounding and the family began to diversify its operations and expand into farmers markets. It’s the only way, they say, that children and grandchildren can stay in the business.

Shaun Rosendahl has been hauling fruit to markets since the age of 16, when he bought a Chevy pickup with money saved. Now, four market supervisors report to him, and he’s partnered with another grower to farm 40 acres on his own.

He says he loves getting up early Saturdays to chat with the regulars at the Torrance market and likes the extra money he earns when a market becomes more profitable. In fact, he says, family members now wrangle over who will get to pick up the next new market, such as the one opening in Malibu this month.

But hitting almost a dozen markets a week isn’t easy work for anyone, except maybe a 21-year-old.

To Patricia Kosmo, 59, it’s downright grueling. Kosmo frets that she’s getting too old to keep up with the hectic pace, which began on a recent Wednesday when she woke up at 4 a.m. to get everything ready for the Santa Monica market and will end about 11 p.m. when she gets home from the Northridge market.

“When I get home I just plop down, completely exhausted,” Kosmo says. “I wonder how much longer I’m going to do this, but then I see people who are older than me, and I say if they can do it, I can do it.”

Moreover, she says, as cities look for ways to revitalize their downtowns, more markets are springing up, cannibalizing sales at existing markets and putting pressure on growers like her to sell more places.

“We’re just going to do what we can and what the family will support,” Kosmo says. “I won’t be at all of them.”

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Farmers Markets

Here’s a sampling of some of the largest farmers’ markets in Los Angeles County:

BEVERLY HILLS: Sundays, 9 a.m. to 1 p.m., 200 block of North Canon Drive

CALABASAS: Saturdays, 8 a.m. to noon, Calabasas Road at El Canon Avenue

CULVER CITY: Tuesdays, 3 p.m. to 7 p.m., 9070 Venice Blvd. at Culver Boulevard

ENCINO: Sundays, 8 a.m. to 1 p.m., 17400 Victory Blvd. near Balboa Boulevard

GARDENA: Saturdays, 6:30 a.m. to noon, 13000 Van Ness Ave., south of El Segundo Boulevard

GLENDALE: Thursdays, 9:30 a.m. to 1:30 p.m., 100 N. Brand Blvd.

LOS ANGELES: Wednesdays, 1 p.m. to 6 p.m. (2 p.m. to 6 p.m. September through May), St. Agnes Church, corner of Adams Boulevard and Vermont Avenue

MONROVIA: Fridays, 5 p.m. to 9 p.m., Myrtle Avenue between Olive and Lime avenues

MONTROSE: Thursdays, 5 p.m. to 9 p.m., Montrose Shopping Park, 2200 block of Honolulu Avenue, between Mountain View and Verdugo roads

NORTHRIDGE: Wednesdays, 5 p.m. to 9 p.m., Northridge Fashion Mall, Tampa Avenue and Plummer Street, in the parking lot between Borders and Macy’s (closed until January 5)

OCEAN BEACH: Wednesdays, 4 p.m. to 8 p.m. (4 p.m. to 7 p.m. in the winter), 4900 block of Newport Avenue

OXNARD: Thursdays, 9:30 a.m. to 1 p.m., Fifth and C streets

PALOS VERDES: Sundays, 9 a.m. to 1 p.m., Peninsula Center parking lot

POMONA: Saturdays, 7:30 a.m. to 11:30 a.m., northwest corner of Garey Avenue and Pearl Street

REDONDO BEACH: Thursdays, 8 a.m. to 1 p.m., end of Torrance Boulevard at the Redondo Pier

SAN DIMAS: Wednesdays, 5 p.m. to 9 p.m. (4 p.m. to 7 p.m. winter), Bonita Avenue between Monte Vista and San Dimas avenues

SANTA MONICA: Wednesdays, 9:00 a.m. to 2 p.m., Arizona Avenue and Second Street; Saturdays, 8:30 a.m. to 1 p.m., Arizona Avenue and Second Street; Saturdays, 8 a.m. to 1 p.m., northwest corner of Cloverfield and Pico boulevards; Sundays, 9 a.m. to 1 p.m., Main Street at Ocean Park Boulevard

SOUTH PASADENA: Thursdays, 4 p.m. to 8 p.m., Meridian Avenue at Mission Street

STUDIO CITY: Sundays, 8 a.m. to 1 p.m., Ventura Place between Ventura and Laurel Canyon boulevards

WEST HOLLYWOOD: Mondays, 9 a.m. to 2 p.m., Plummer Park, 7377 Santa Monica Blvd.

WESTWOOD: Thursdays, 2 p.m. to 7 p.m., Weyburn Avenue at Westwood Boulevard

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Source: Southland Farmers’ Market Assn.