Market News

Lizzie’s Pantry is listed online this week for January. She only lists once per month. The pancake mix and all purpose flour is my favorite. If you have a mill, she also offers several non-GMO seeds and grains.

Welcome to 2015, and another year of The Cumming Harvest. This will be our 5th year in operation, and we are looking forward to many more. Many of our growers are have slowed down for the winter, delivering every other week or otherwise reducing their availability. Many others, however, are still going strong thanks to greenhouses and other season-extending methods. Now that the holiday season is behind us, we’ll be going every single week.

Each year, I devote the first few mailings of the year to the behind the scenes operation of TCH. This week, I’m going to talk about the many legal issues surrounding our market. Even though many people call us “the co-op”, TCH is legally a market owned and operated me, so I can have a place to sell items I occasionally offer from my own garden. There’s no board of directors, no shield corporation, no pot of grant money. It’s just me, and while that keeps things very simple, it also exposes my family to a ton of potential liability. There are several things I do specifically to minimize that risk:

The growers list their own items and set their own prices. When you buy from them, it is from them, not from me, and not from The Cumming Harvest. The Cumming Harvest never takes ownership or possession of the food. The growers drop it off, and you pick it up. Everything at the market has a customer’s name attached to it when it arrives. TCH does not repackage any items, or buy in bulk for redistribution. When you pay, you’re paying into a shared cash box for all of the growers. This lets you write a single check or swipe your card once for convenience, but you are really paying all of the growers directly and individually. Your money goes in, and the software keeps everything going spits out checks for each of the growers you buy from. The growers give a small percentage of their sales, 10%, back to the market to cover the many expenses of keeping the market going. I’ll cover the details of finances another week. TCH never buys from a grower and resells the items to you. Although I do take group orders and purchase from out of state items that we can’t get in GA. Things like butter, cheese, cod liver oil, etc. When a grower sells items that need licenses from either the state or the federal government, TCH verifies that the proper licenses have been obtained.

In the following weeks, I’ll get more into the nuts and bolts of finances and other aspects of how we work. Many of the decisions I make for the market are based on how the founding market, Athens Locally Grown, is run. The ALG market manager is also the web developer for the website and is in their 15th year of running. We hope to be around for that long too. :)

LOCATION
Building 106, Colony Park Dr. in the Basement of Suite 100, Cumming, GA 30040.
Google Map

PICK UP HOURS
Saturday from 10-12pm.
106 Colony Park Drive, Suite 100 Cumming, GA 30040
Please contact me if you have any questions, problems or suggestions. EMAIL ME

To view the harvest today and tomorrow till 8pm, visit “The Market” page on our website, The Cumming Harvest

We thank you for your interest and support of our efforts to bring you the healthiest, the freshest and the most delicious locally-produced foods possible!