Industry
How the USDA Local Food Marketing Practices Survey shapes what small brands know
The USDA Local Food Marketing Practices Survey counts direct sales by U.S. farms, and small pantry producers can use its figures when pitching groceries.
What to take away
- The Local Food Marketing Practices Survey measures what US farms sell through local and regional channels. NASS reports totals by channel, not by brand.
- The first reference year was 2015$8.7 billion in local food sales from about 167,000 farms.
- Direct-to-retail is a named channel, so a pantry brand can cite a figure for the route its jar travels.
- Buyers want your own numbers beside the federal ones, because the survey stops at the farm gate.
- Check the NASS release tables and the AMS State Agricultural Marketing Profiles before you quote a figure.
What the survey counts, and who runs it
The USDA National Agricultural Statistics Service runs the survey. The unit of response is the farm, not the brand, the co-packer or the grocery chain.
Respondents report whether they marketed food locally, then report sales by channel. A farm selling jam at one market answers the same questionnaire as a farm shipping pallets to a regional grocer.
Value-added goods count when the farm made them. A farmstead jam or a milled flour can appear in the totals. The jar still has to meet standard jam composition rules once it reaches a shelf.
How a shop verifies that a farm really made the product is covered in the provenance checks for heritage pantry products.
Resale does not count. A farm that buys someone else's honey and repacks it is not reporting that honey. Read the definitions before you quote a number.
The 2015 figures and the channels behind them
NASS fielded the first survey for reference year 2015 and published results the following year.
The 2015 figures
| Measure | Published figure, reference year 2015 |
|---|---|
| Total local food sales | $8.7 billion |
| Farms reporting local food sales | about 167,000, roughly 8 percent of US farms |
| Direct-to-consumer sales | about $2.8 billion, close to a third of the total |
| Retail, restaurant, institutional and intermediated sales | the remaining two thirds, reported by channel |
Cite the reference year every time. NASS revises tables, and state cuts appear beside the national ones.
The channels behind them
Who buys
- Direct to consumer
- Farmers markets, farm stands, CSAs, online orders
- Direct to retail
- Grocery stores, specialty shops, co-ops, food hubs
- Direct to restaurant
- Restaurants and caterers
- Direct to institution
- Schools, hospitals, government sites
- Intermediated
- Distributors and brokers buying for resale
What it tells a pantry brand
- Direct to consumer
- Baseline demand, usually the smallest ticket sizes
- Direct to retail
- Evidence that retail shelves accept farm-made product
- Direct to restaurant
- Volume potential, with tighter delivery windows
- Direct to institution
- Contract demand tied to state and federal programs
- Intermediated
- Reach beyond the farm's own delivery radius
[figure 1]
Direct-to-retail channels compared
Direct to consumer
- Who buys
- Markets, stands, CSAs
- What it tells
- Baseline demand
- Ticket size
- Smallest
- Delivery
- Farm-direct
Direct to retail
- Who buys
- Grocery, specialty, co-ops
- What it tells
- Retail shelf acceptance
- Ticket size
- Mid
- Delivery
- Store delivery
Direct to restaurant
- Who buys
- Restaurants, caterers
- What it tells
- Volume potential
- Ticket size
- Larger
- Delivery
- Tighter schedules
Grocers, co-ops and food hubs share one bucket, so no national figure exists for co-op sales on its own. A hub sale is often reported at the farm-to-hub stage, so two producers in one chain can look like one data point.
Channel mix also explains why the same jar carries different prices in different accounts, a pattern laid out in why channel beats recipe on independent brand pricing.
How the survey is fielded, and where it is thin
The survey follows the Census of Agriculture, which NASS runs every five years and which covers farms selling at least $1,000 of agricultural products. The census supplies the denominator: how many farms a state has.
[figure 2]
How NASS collects the figures
- Build sample from Census mailing list
- Mail questionnaire with online option
- Report sales by channel and practices
- Follow up with nonrespondents
- Tabulate, review, publish tables
The census is mandatory. Supplemental surveys are often voluntary, so response rates vary, and NASS publishes methodology notes for readers who want to weigh a table.
County tables exist in some releases but run thin. Disclosure rules suppress cells where too few farms report.
Small farms are the hardest to count. A homestead selling jam at two markets a year may fall below thresholds or decline to answer, so published totals run conservative.
What the state tables show
State tables are the most useful cut for a small maker. Regions with dense direct marketing infrastructure report a higher share of farms selling locally.
Appalachia leans toward consumer-direct sales, which fits small farms and hard terrain. The Appalachian farm and market context explains why retail-channel figures there stay modest.
California often dominates national totals because of its farm count, which can hide what is happening in smaller states. Use a state or county cut in a pitch.
How to use the figures in a buyer pitch
A grocery buyer has limited shelf space and a category plan already on file. Show that your product fits that plan and that demand is measured.
How to use the figures
- Open with your state's direct-to-retail figure, not the national total.
- Note what the figure excludes, so the buyer sees you read the methodology.
- Add your own sales in that channel, by month where you have records.
- Name the gap in the buyer's assortment that your product fills.
- Close with one aska single-store test, a date and a reorder point.
- Keep it to one page, with a source line under every number.
A citation to a federal dataset separates you from pitches that lead with a story. If your state retail figure is small, say so, then explain the gap you fill.
Buyers also weigh the operational basics, set out in the checks a shop runs before a first pantry order.
Where the survey stops, and what to use instead
It stops at the farm gate. It does not track your brand's sales, a distributor's margin or anything after the first sale. Imported ingredients and products co-packed off the farm fall outside it.
USDA AMS State Agricultural Marketing Profiles describe a state's production base and marketing infrastructure. AMS also publishes grades and standards for fruits, covering some processed fruit products.
State agriculture departments handle licensing and inspection, and the rules differ by state. USDA FSIS inspects meat and poultry. FDA covers most other foods, including labeling.
A federal figure tells a buyer the channel exists. Your invoices tell the buyer you belong in it.
If the category decision is still open, work through the planning sequence for pantry brand discovery before you book the meeting.
