One Monday morning, in an open pole barn, a crowd of casually dressed people gathered and listened attentively.
On either side of the group, microphone-wielding auctioneers made sing-song calls to buyers, who discreetly raised their fingers to get the right price on floors full of perfect products.
The Mid-Missouri Produce Auction in Fortuna, Missouri, attracts market owners and dealers from more than 100 miles away, all drawn to fresh, locally grown fruits and vegetables.
About 90% of the auction’s produce comes from farms within a 10-mile radius, in yards that “are measured in 1,000 square feet, not acres,” according to auction director John Shirk.
It all started about 30 years ago, when a group of Old Order Mennonite families wanted a new way to sell their fruits and vegetables.
Many of those same families still load up their horses and buggies three days a week and rush to the auction.
Only now, after decades of practice, is the auction barn generating millions of dollars in sales as a successful link in a local food distribution chain.
“A shrewd buyer”
Sellers begin downloading two hours before the auction begins. They stack boxes of their fresh harvest on green “carts” (carts with wheels) and attach a vendor number to the handle.
The numbers are drawn using a lottery system, so it is randomly assigned who is the first and last to sell their products in the auction.
Buyers arrive with various vehicles from all over. Some stop at the concession stand to buy a homemade donut or lunch while they wait for the auctioneers to turn on their microphones.
Then, the crowd gathers.
Two auctioneers sell lots of products from both sides.
“It takes a smart buyer to be able to buy both sides,” Shirk said.
He found that this method keeps auctions short and sweet, so people can get on with their day. Typically, the auction house is empty within an hour.
“The more efficient we can keep it, the better it will work,” Shirk said.
The quick auction takes place every Monday, Wednesday and Friday during the growing season (April to October).
This is not for the everyday produce buyer.
These auctions are specifically geared toward wholesale buyers hoping to purchase 100-pound lots of tomatoes at a time.
Once installed, buyers take the carts to their vehicles and load them.
Norman Borgmeyer travels more than two hours to shop at the Central Missouri Produce Auction for his market in Salem, Missouri.
“They have good quality stuff,” Borgmeyer said.
You have visited some of the other auctions closest to your business. But he insists this auction, just north of Versailles, Missouri, is the biggest and best.
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Pacer Hatridge loads boxes of produce into the back of a pickup truck. Travel two hours from Salem, Missouri, with Norman Borgmeyer to shop at the auction.
Borgmeyer travels with Pacer Hatridge, who helped him load trays of tomatoes, cucumbers, potatoes, asparagus and zucchini into the back of a van.
After the two-hour drive home, Borgmeyer will sell Missouri-grown produce at his Highway 72 farmers market.
Matt Burks took over 200 pounds of tomatoes.
Early in the season, produce grown in greenhouses and high tunnels is expensive.
At the recent auction, Burks paid $26 per 15-pound tray. He said later in the season, or at the right sale, juicy tomatoes are cheap.
“I’ve walked away with hundreds of tomatoes, for pennies, in my mind,” said Burks, who normally comes from Sedalia, Missouri, to the produce auction every two weeks.
He takes them to Healthy Habits, the health food store his wife runs, where tomatoes are a big seller.
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John Shirk and his son Peter make sure the Central Missouri Produce Auction runs smoothly.
Many of the buyers grow their own produce. But they use the auction products to complement their retail businesses.
“We had to start getting produce (because) our garden isn’t ready yet,” Luke Buechter said as he pushed a deckful of tomatoes toward his truck.
Buechter and his wife have been attending the auction for about 20 years to complement the products of T & L Gardening, their store in Belle, Missouri.
He makes the 90-minute trip every two weeks, sometimes more frequently.
“We can get the best products right here,” Buechter said.
Plus, you know that on the right day you can get a great deal, like a deal for $2 per box of tomatoes.
“If you really pay attention, there are times when you can get a good bargain,” he said.
Making it work in the Midwest
Shirk and his children brought onions, asparagus, garlic, beets and cabbage to the recent auction.
Their asparagus and garlic sold for a little less than I expected, but other than that, it was a decent sale.
“Sometimes you just have to close your eyes,” Shirk said, laughing about the fluctuating prices inherent in an auction.
According to research published in the “Journal of Amish and Plain Anabaptist Studies,” fruit and vegetable auctions in the United States date back more than 200 years.
Auctions fell out of favor between the 1940s and 1970s. But they were revived by Pennsylvania’s Amish and Mennonite communities in the late 1980s.
Around that time, Shirk said some Old Order Mennonite families in central Missouri were having difficulty selling produce from their farms.
“It was an unsatisfactory agreement,” Shirk said.
They heard about the success of East Coast auctions and decided to try it in their community.
“It was a little questionable whether or not that would work in the Midwest,” Shirk said.
Initial doubts have been replaced by decades of success and growth.
Many of the same founding members remain shareholders and serve on the board of directors, but the auction is open to any local producer, not just Mennonite farmers.
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Luke Buechter has been attending the auction outside Versailles, Missouri, for 20 years.
The auction works and is popular in the community, in part because it allows people who need to travel with horsepower to sell in a larger, more profitable market.
Without the auction, producers would have to spend more time marketing their products or pay someone to take them to a larger market.
“What makes it work so well is that a number of buyers can come here and instead of running from farm to farm, they can come here and they have a wide range of quality and price,” Shirk said.
The Central Missouri Produce Auction is one of 10 in the state.
Patrick Byers is a horticultural specialist with the University of Missouri Extension. Byers supports produce auction producers in his southern Missouri region.
The communities it works with have trained farmers, with several generations of practical knowledge. He leads workshops on topics such as food safety and insect and disease management.
“In other words, how to grow the crops necessary for quality at auctions,” Byers said.
Most growers grow in greenhouses and high tunnels, which provide a controlled environment and dramatically extend the growing season.
“Their goal is to grow tomatoes when there are no other local tomatoes on the market,” Byers explained. “It also gives you the option to produce higher quality crops than you would produce in the field.”
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Product auctions are intended for wholesale buyers who may purchase hundreds of pounds of products at a time.
He believes auctions are a great option for buyers who value quality. Wholesale prices also encourage restaurants to buy locally.
“The reason it works so well is because of the connections,” Byers said. “People who buy food recognize the quality of what they buy.”
He believes the same method could work everywhere, not just in Amish or Mennonite communities. Byers said he sees a similar strategy in the growing popularity of local food hubs.
Food hubs, like the one in Kansas City, work with a variety of producers throughout the region and aggregate their products to create more reliable distribution.
As with a produce auction, a food center uses multiple growers to ensure that a wholesale buyer can get enough of what they need, even if a farm has a late-flowering tomato crop or was damaged by a storm.
In recent years, more produce auctions have popped up in Missouri.
“We’ve seen an explosion in interest in produce auctions,” Byers said. “The fact that they have persisted and that we are seeing more and more of them appear points to their viability.”
Several Amish families from the Seymour, Missouri area migrated to southeastern Kansas and started a produce auction outside Thayer.
Joe Curran lives in the Thayer area and runs the auction house for his Amish neighbors.
“We are nothing more than your connection to the outside world,” Curran said.
As an outside connector, Curran calls potential buyers and advertises the auction, which is more than a decade old.
Like the Central Missouri Produce auction, producers come from just down the street and buyers travel dozens of miles, twice a week.
“The funny thing for me… (is that) we’ve developed kind of a family atmosphere around it,” Curran said. “We miss each other during the winter.”
This story was originally published by KC Media Collective member Flatland.
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