Farm Market Patron Behavioral Response to Food Sampling

This study examines farm market patron responses to food sampling experiences and provides a baseline of regional differences of consumer interest in various products selling in the farmers market. Results show that the sampling strategy can highly engage consumers’ attention and easy to spread the product information. Food sampling showed a number of immediate product purchasing impacts, as well as other behaviors positively impacting vendor sales. The most important reason patrons identified that encouraged them to try a sample was friendliness of vendors. Sampling is a highly experiential merchandising strategy that fits in well with the farm market venue. More than half of the patrons indicated actually purchasing after sampling that were not planning to buy the product that day before the food sampling