Grow Food • Build Businesses • Strengthen Communities
Market Lab
You Grew It. Now What?
Helping Growers Connect Their Harvest to Opportunity.
Growing food is only part of the journey.
Market Lab helps people explore what happens after the harvest—how locally grown food moves from farms and gardens into the hands of customers and communities.
Through hands-on activities, market demonstrations, and practical learning experiences, participants discover how farmers prepare products for sale, connect with customers, and create opportunities through direct marketing.
From pop-up farm stands to produce boxes and farmers markets, Market Lab makes the journey from growing food to reaching customers something people can see, explore, and experience.
What you'll discover
Growing Food Is Just the Beginning.
From Harvest to Customer
Explore how farmers prepare, organize, and distribute locally grown food.
Farmers Markets + Farm Stands
Discover what it takes to create welcoming, reliable places where growers and customers connect.
Produce Boxes + Community Supported Agriculture
Explore how farmers can bundle seasonal produce and develop convenient purchasing options for customers.
Pricing + Customer Relationships
Learn why understanding costs, setting prices, and building trust with customers matter.
Working Together
Discover how growers can collaborate to offer more variety, coordinate sales, and reach additional markets.
Growing Local Opportunity
Explore how direct-to-consumer markets can strengthen farm businesses and increase fresh food access.
Market Roots
Helping Rural Farmers Build Markets That Last.
Market Roots is a featured farmer-development initiative within Market Lab.
Through a combination of virtual training, hands-on market experiences, and technical assistance, Market Roots helps small and mid-sized farmers in rural and underserved Georgia communities develop direct-to-consumer sales opportunities.
The initiative focuses on establishing farmers markets, farm stands, produce box programs, and collaborative marketing arrangements that help growers reach customers and strengthen their businesses.
Why Market Lab matters
Strong Farms Need Strong Markets.
Farmers need more than the ability to grow good food. They also need dependable opportunities to sell it.
Market Lab helps participants discover the people, practices, and relationships that connect farms with customers.
For young people, it introduces agricultural entrepreneurship.
For beginning growers, it opens the door to direct marketing.
For communities, it demonstrates how local markets can make fresh food more accessible while supporting the people who grow it.
When local farmers have more ways to reach customers, more opportunities can take root in their communities.
Keep exploring
Market Lab is one of seven connected Fresh Start Smart Labs exploring food, agriculture, entrepreneurship, and healthy living.
From growing food in Grow Lab and Farm Lab to preparing it in Kitchen Lab and connecting it with customers through Market Lab, each experience offers another way to learn by doing.
Next Stop: FreshRx Lab
Discover how fresh food connects with healthier living and community wellness.
Explore FreshRx LabBring Market Lab to your community
Let's Explore What Happens After the Harvest.
Market Lab can bring hands-on market learning to schools, agricultural events, community organizations, youth programs, and farmer-development initiatives.
Experiences can include produce box assembly, pop-up farm stand activities, market demonstrations, and practical lessons in pricing, packaging, and customer engagement.
For farmers ready to develop direct-to-consumer sales opportunities, Market Roots offers a more focused pathway for training and technical assistance.