FRESHFARM is a non-profit that promotes sustainableagriculture and improves food access and equity in the Mid-Atlantic region and manages 33 farmers markets in theWashington, DC metropolitan region, which makes it thethird-largest farmers market organization in the United States.   

The Market Tracker is a Google Sheets database thatFRESHFARM uses to collect sales data at the farmers marketsthat it manages.  FRESHFARM has helped other farmersmarkets use the Market Tracker, and FRESHFARM’saspirational goal is to offer Market Tracker as an open-sourcedatabase to farmers market organizations across the UnitedStates.  This innovation brief will assist other farmer's marketmanagers assess whether the Market Tracker could be valuablefor their own market.  The Market Tracker has unique featuresand  is not being widely used to-date.

Farmer's market managers have significant constraints on theirtime and resources.  These capacity limitations have beenexacerbated by the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic asmarkets scramble to implement social distancing guidelines toremain open. Market managers may perceive data collection as alower-priority activity in this context.  However, we show howthe Market Tracker has assisted FRESHFARM with adapting toCOVID-19. Specifically, it helped FRESHFARM with reportingrequirements and with estimating the impacts of COVID-19 ontheir markets and vendors. Once market managers were able tosuccessfully implement social distancing measures, continuing tocollect data using the Market Tracker helps FRESHFARM andquantify and further adapt to the impacts of the pandemic ontheir markets.

ISSUEMarket organizers andmanagers experiencesignificant time andresource constraints.These constraintswere only exacerbatedby the COVID-19pandemic, wheresome markets were

able to operate under strict guidelinesthat more time and resources tooperating the markets. In this context,data collection may seem lesssignificant. However, data collection isvaluable in managing and advocatingfor the presence of farmer's markets.

The Market Trackerimproves accountingprocedures, reducesthe data collectionburden for marketstaff, and enablesinformation sharing

among the farmers markets in theirnetwork. FRESHFARM’s aspirationalgoal is to offer Market Tracker as anopen-source database to farmersmarket organizations across the UnitedStates.

Market Tracker is a Google Sheetsdatabase that FRESHFARM uses tocollect sales data at the farmers marketsthat it manages. The database alsocreates other charts that enableFRESHFARM to evaluate the compositionof vendors, available products, andcurrencies being used at its farmersmarkets.

INNOVATION

OUTCOME

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Jeffrey O'Hara, Co-Author, U.S.Department of Agriculture –Agricultural Marketing Service

Nick Stavely, Co-Author,FRESHFARM

Emily Spencer, Editor/Design,University of Kentucky Extension

FRESHFARM’s Market Tracker: Methods for Farmers Markets to Collect Sales Data

Local Food Systems Response to COVID:Building Better Beyond LFS-IB-02

For FRESHFARM, the Market Tracker improvestheir accounting procedures, streamlines the datacollection process for market and administrativestaff, and enables the sharing of informationamong the farmers markets in their network.Prior to the market tracker, it was challenging forFRESHFARM to develop data collectionprotocols among numerous farmers markets dueto market manager turnover and a lack ofstandardization. The Market Tracker allowsFRESHFARM to collect data in a consistentmanner, which in turn facilitates an analysis ofavailable agricultural product mixes across theirmarkets, provides real-time benefit and incentiveprogram data to inform their access programoutreach and evaluation, and creates clearaccounting records to maintain vendor accountsand reports to funders.

It forms the basis of a transparent accountingsystem between FRESHFARM and its vendors. This is helpful because a) fees that FRESHFARMcharges to its vendors are based on a percentageof sales and b) vendors accept food assistancebenefits and incentives for which they needreimbursement.

FRESHFARM has multiple funders that supportthe wide array of food assistance benefits andincentives that they offer at their markets.  Thedatabase allows FRESHFARM to effectively andaccurately create customized reports to fundersand local officials about the economic impactsof  the markets, as well as provide FRESHFARMadministrative staff with clear information tocreate financial reports and reimbursementschedules.

The database can assist vendors with their owninternal record-keeping, by providing clearaccounting records for vendors lacking

administrative capacity. Some vendors initiallyfound certain aspects of Market Tracker to beconfusing when it was introduced to them. However, by the middle of the first year,approximately 90% of FRESHFARM vendors thatused Market Tracker did so consistentlythroughout the entire market season, and did solargely independent of FRESHFARM's assistance.

Vendors are incentivized to enter data accuratelyso that they can use it for other administrativepurposes (e.g., accounting, business planning, andevaluating market performance), andFRESHFARM has received anecdotal feedbackfrom vendors that they would prefer similarinsight into their sales data at non-FRESHFARMmarkets.  Finally, the database can facilitateevaluation efforts by researchers and marketmanagers on the effectiveness of interventionsintended to increase market activity, howdifferent combinations of product types sold at themarket may influence sales, or how extraneousevents, like hot weather days or rain, impactmarket performance.

Vendors and FRESHFARM staff both enter datainto the system.  The Market Tracker databaseadministrator inputs the list of vendors atFRESHFARM markets, a classification of theprimary type of product that the vendor sells (e.g.,produce or meat), a unique PIN that is requiredwhen vendors enter their sales data, and thecombination of markets at which the vendors sellsproducts.

FRESHFARM's Arlington Farmer's Market, Arlington, Virginia. Photo by Jeffrey O'Hara.

Market Tracker serves several purposes:

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Markets located at the same site but on differentdays are treated as separate markets to betterunderstand market performance. Additionally, theadministrator can differentiate between vendorsthat sell for a select number of market daysthroughout the year and those that do for theentire market season.  Each vendor submits salesdata; which is dis-aggregated by cash, credit, andonline sales; for each market and market daythroughout the entire season, allowing for greaterinsight into market activity and more data toinform proposals, programmatic decisions, andadvocacy for food benefit access programs.FRESHFARM market managers enter the salesdata on behalf of the few vendors that do notdirectly access the system due to technologicalconstraints.

Additionally, market managers submit, for eachvendor and market-day, a record of the benefitsand incentives that vendors accept as payment. Market managers obtain this information byperiodically walking around the market with atablet while the market is open.  They collectbenefit tokens from each vendor, count them outin the presence of the vendor, and then enter theamount into the tablet after the vendor hasconfirmed that the amount is correct. Thismethod of reconciling token redemptionsthroughout the market day has severaladministrative advantages.  It reduces the numberof tokens in circulation at the market since atoken could be used multiple times during themarket day, and also reduces the administrativeburden and possible resulting errors that can arisewhen market managers tediously count tokensafter the market has closed. Additionally,FRESHFARM staff records if a given vendor wasabsent from the market, present with noincentives redeemed, or present with incentivesredeemed. This is a helpful designation foradministrative staff who oversee data for multiplemarkets and review this data on a monthly basis.

Data entered both by the vendors and byFRESHFARM staff is combined to provide acomprehensive accounting for each vendor’s dayat the market.

The Market Tracker informs market organizersand producers how the COVID-19 pandemicimpacts FRESHFARM’s operations. The MarketTracker allows FRESHFARM to project howmarket closures and revenue changes will impacttheir administrative revenue for the year. 

The Market Tracker provides FRESHFARMwith market data that they, in turn, cancommunicate to policymakers about how theCOVID-19 pandemic is impacting directmarketing farmers in the Mid-Atlantic region.Further, with a collapsing economy,FRESHFARM has insight into how the pandemicis impacting food assistance redemption benefitsamong the most vulnerable residents in theWashington, D.C. area.

FRESHFARM's Farmer's Market, Arlington, Virginia. Photo by Jeffrey O'Hara.

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COVID-19 Application

FRESHFARM maintains a Market Tracker guideand can provide more specifics about how to putthe Market Tracker into practice. FRESHFARMseeks to share the Market Tracker with otherinterested markets and organizations.FRESHFARM is able to configure the tool to suitthe needs of single market operations as well asfor multi-market networks.

While FRESHFARM uses the Master Tracker totrack sales across their network of farmersmarkets, they have collaborated with theirsoftware developer to develop a single-marketversion of the Market Tracker. For instance, theyshared the Market Tracker with the CrossroadsFarmers Market in Maryland, which is a marketwith relatively high internal capacity.  Thisexperience has been positive, and we includetestimonial by the Crossroads Farmers Marketbelow, which we have lightly copy-edited.

"Crossroads Community Food Network isbuilding a healthier, more inclusive food systemat the Takoma/Langley Crossroads, a primarilyimmigrant, low-income community just outsideWashington, D.C. At the heart of this integratednetwork of food growers, makers, and consumersis the Crossroads Farmers Market, where aninnovative nutrition incentive program makes iteasier to bring home more healthy food, and atthe same time helps support local farmers and

vendors—the majority of whom are alsoimmigrants.

As the Program Manager at the CrossroadsFarmers Market, I have been using the MarketTracker for the past nine months. In that time, ithas proven to be not only an incredibly usefultool for tracking farmers’ weekly sales, but hasalso been the primary data collection tool I use toprovide information for grant proposals andreports.

In addition, the farmers and market vendors haveaccess to their individual sales reports, allowingthem to refer back to their sales at varying partsof the year. For both vendors and marketmanagers, the Market Tracker is an extremelyhelpful tool to collect and report sales and specificdata trends.

For example, a significant number of marketattendees use Supplemental Nutrition AssistanceProgram (SNAP) and Women, Infants, andChildren (WIC) Farmers Market NutritionProgram benefits. Utilizing the Master Tracker, Iam able to determine which zip codes many ofour SNAP and WIC shoppers come from inorder to apply for county, state, and federalgrants. Ultimately, these funds have helped tosupport our matching SNAP program at market,special events, and healthy eating fooddemonstrations. Because this is my second seasonusing the Market Tracker, I’m also able to referback to the previous year’s sales, and compare anysignificant differences. As a whole, using theMarket Tracker allows me to better digest and

By connecting and empowering those

who grow, make, and eat healthy

food, Crossroads is helping an under-

served community attain food equity

and self-sufficiency.

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The Market Tracker Testimonial

understand financial and geographical dataspecific to my market, and to easily report thisinformation back to funders and donors."

Building Better Beyond:

The Market Tracker can help farmers marketsmanagers collect market data in a standardizedway. The Market Tracker has the potential to beadopted by other farmers market networks, as itdoes not depend on proprietary software, andFRESHFARM has helped other farmers marketsuse the Market Tracker. However, the MarketTracker is one of several alternatives available tomarket managers, and it is important tounderstand its strengths and weaknesses relativeto the suite of options that are available. Farmersmarkets managers have different needs andcapacities. So, some resources may be valuable forsome markets, while others may be for alternatemarkets.

To help managers assess whether it makes senseto adopt Market Tracker at their own market, wepresent other preexisting data collection options

and a select number of other relevant technicalassistance resources available to market managers.This will allow managers to compare thefunctionality of the Market Tracker withalternatives.

According to the Farmers Market Coalition,approximately 300 farmers markets in the UnitedStates are using Farmers Market Metrics. TheFarmers Market Coalition has developed FarmersMarket Metrics as a software platform for marketmanagers. Farmers Market Metrics has templatesthat allow managers to collect a wide variety ofinformation, such as vendor sales, customer dataand vendor attributes. Metrics further compilesdata into public-facing infographics that can beprovided to local officials or embedded within

Sara Servin, Crossroads Farmers Market

Crossroads Farmer's Market, Takoma, Maryland.Photo by Crossroads Farmers Market.

opportunities and considerations

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Farmers Market Metrics

(https://farmersmarketmetrics.guide/):

social media posts. Metrics provides marketmanagers with several options for entering data,which provides flexibility. In Metrics, users canspecify which collaborators are able to access theirdata.

While there is partial overlap in the functionalityof Metrics and Market Tracker, their differencesimply they can serve as complements.FRESHFARM, for instance, uses Farmers MarketMetrics alongside the Market Tracker.

Farm 2 Facts (https://farm2facts.org/): Thisresource, developed by the University ofWisconsin (Madison), is similar to FarmersMarket Metrics. Data entered into Farm 2 Facts isjointly owned by the University of Wisconsinand the farmers market organizationmanagemymarket.

This software offers farmer market managers anonline vendor management system. It helpsmarket managers process vendor applications,organize vendor-specific documents, specifypayment plans and other market regulations, andprovide a question-and-answer portal for vendors.FRESHFARM is able to pull vendor informationfrom managemymarket into the Market Tracker,so that this information does not need to becollected in multiple places.

Farmers Market Legal Toolkit(https://farmersmarketlegaltoolkit.org/): Thisresource assists farmers market managers withestablishing best practices in record-keeping,identifying business organizational structures,accepting Supplemental Nutrition AssistanceProgram benefits, and managing market risks.

The Farmers Market Coalition maintains a morecomprehensive list of resources at:http://farmersmarketcoalition.org/education/resource-library/., powerpoint presentations fromfarmers market managers across the United States

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For more information on FarmersMarket Coalition and their

initiatives, visit their website: https://farmersmarketcoalition.org/

from the 2019 National Direct AgriculturalMarketing Summit are available at the following website address:https://localfoodeconomics.com/agsummit2019/#download.

For more information and resources on Localand Regional Food Systems Response to COVID:Building Better Beyond, visit:https://lfscovid.localfoodeconomics.com/ where you can sign up for our project listserv,read other innovation briefs, and check outresources put forth by other sectors of the localand regional food system.

This innovation brief was created in fulfillment ofa cooperative research agreement between theMarketing Services Division of the AgriculturalMarketing Service of the United StatesDepartment of Agriculture (USDA AMS), theUniversity of Kentucky, Colorado StateUniversity and Penn State University.

Educational programs of Kentucky Cooperative Extension serve all people regardless of economic or social status and will notdiscriminate on the basis of race, color, ethnic origin, national origin, creed, religion, political belief, sex, sexual orientation,gender identity, gender expression, pregnancy, marital status, genetic information, age, veteran status, or physical or mental

disability.

For more information onFRESHFARM and Market

Tracker, contact:

Nick Stavely nick@ffm.org

https://www.freshfarm.org/

Special thanks to the following organizationfor contributing to this innovation brief:

The findings and conclusions in this innovation brief are those of the authors and shouldnot be construed to represent any official USDA or U.S. Government determination or

policy. USDA is an equal opportunity provider, employer, and lender.

Reviewed by: Samantha Schaffstall, USDAAMS and Emily Spencer, University ofKentucky.

Citation: O'HaraJ., & Stavely, N.(2020) FRESHFARM's Market

Tracker: Methods for Farmers Markets to CollectSales Data. University of Kentucky AECExtension Publication. LSF-IB-02, July.

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Thanks for reading!