The Farmers Market That Started It All for Vermont Marshmallow Co.

How $236 and zero experience launched what became one of Vermont's most beloved specialty food brands.

Six years ago, I applied to Vermont's biggest farmers market--the Burlington Farmers Market--fully convinced I wouldn't get in.

I'd had the business for four months. I'd done an online Christmas drop and a Valentine's Day drop, and that was it. I had no tent, no table, no tablecloth, no sales gene, and genuinely no idea what I was doing. What I did have: a great product, a rough idea of a brand, and a stubborn commitment to making this sweet little idea a much bigger reality.

I applied to prove to myself I meant business.

And then I got in.

WHAT. THE. ACTUAL. HECK.

I scrambled. Over the next month I haphazarded together a setup I thought would work, and summoned the courage to actually STAND behind my product and tell people, to their faces, that I thought it was good enough for them to spend their hard-earned dollars on.

That first market, I made $236.

BOY HOWDY did I celebrate.

(We now regularly do 6–60x that at any given event. Just saying.)

The setup has been refined. The offerings have expanded. The events have gotten bigger. The sales gene still never quite kicked in — but the deep belief that this is something frickin' awesome that you deserve to have in your life? That has only grown.

All of which is to say: I cannot wait to kick off our 7th season at the Burlington Farmers Market on May 9th. The market that started it all.

See you there. ♥