5 Tips for Displaying Vegetables

5 Tips for Displaying Vegetables

You don't just toss vegetables into a vegetable bin and expect them to sell. Like anything, a good vegetable display takes time and energy and a little bit of know-how. The vegetables need to be carefully selected and prepared, and they need to be of superior quality—the sorts of vegetables that might grace the front of a garden magazine, or the Thanksgiving cornucopia in a commercial.

Here are five things you need to look for in a vegetable when you're considering placing it in the vegetable display bin.

• Color. Choose vegetables that are as vibrant as a child's box of crayons. Deep reds, yellows, and greens will sell; sickly browns and grays won't. Try to keep the colors uniform in particular vegetable bins, but don't worry about whether or not the color of vegetables in one bin 'go with' the colors in the other bins. Vegetables don't clash. People expect to see the tomatoes next to the onions, regardless of the color.

• Maturity. Make sure all the vegetables in every vegetable bin are in prime condition, especially since they will be eaten soon after they're bought. The only exceptions should be those vegetables, like green tomatoes and winter squash, that are meant to be eaten while immature. Especially be on the lookout for overripe vegetables; their colors are often vibrant, but they deteriorate quickly and leave customers with a handful of mush.

• Freshness. Vegetables are perishable, and some perish faster than others. Be constantly on the lookout for shriveling. Remember that customers want to touch the vegetables they're about to buy from the your vegetable display bin; if they turn over a succulent red apple and find a wormhole, your display will actually repel rather than attract them.

• Marketable size. Unless you're displaying vegetables at the county fair, extraordinarily large or small specimens will not attract people. Just the opposite, actually: they may send them to the market across the street. Best to weed out very large and very small specimens from the beginning.

• Right size and shape. A squash should look like a squash; a tomato like a tomato. No matter how commonplace deformed vegetables might be, no matter how often you tell people that they taste exactly the same as the normal-looking specimens, customers don't want them and people won't eat them. Make sure all the vegetables in the vegetable display bins look the way they're “supposed” to look. Weed out vegetables with obvious bumps and strange curves.

A nice vegetable display requires careful attention to the colors and freshness of the produce in your display bin. Taking some extra care to find vegetables of just the right size and shape, the right maturity, and freshness, will make the difference between vegetables that are sold quickly and ones that aren't sold at all.