Storage

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Producers should be aware that a restaurant's space usually comes at a premium. Kitchens are often crowded, and the space in a restaurant’s walk-in cooler may be limited. However, these realities should not keep a producer from starting the discussion about expanding their offerings to a new or existing restaurant customer. Producers with less perishable products may even be able to help chefs solve their own storage dilemmas. 

Limited storage space at a restaurant or other buyer's facility can leave the producer looking for a place to store their product. On-farm cold storage or refrigerated storage is often a nice solution to this problem. On-farm cold storage can come at a price if a storage uni is not already in place, but it serves and benefits as a place the producer can keep product fresh in-between deliveries.  

Best Marketing Practices

• Be aware of how much product your buyers can handle. You don't want to overload your buyer's space or capacity. 
• Be willing to help buyers come up with off site storage, such as space in on-farm cold storage. 
• If using on-farm storage, be sure to have storage guidelines in place to keep product at its peak level of freshness.
• Check out a resource for cold storage and examples of cold storage below.