My parents are retired. They have some land. As far as i know, there are no Asian groceries/farmer markets that feature these products around where they live but there is a relative Asian population (Florida, hot weather) and I was thinking that perhaps it might be a good idea to grow the various Thai vegetables (gapow, lemon grass, bi-ma-grut, thai chili etc) that are often hard to find in the USA depending on where you live and can be very expensive. At the moment, I know zero about gardening and I am just wondering if you think this is a realistic source of income and if its worth the time to actually do the research. Any idea how much the various thai vegetables sell for, which would be the most profitable in terms of time/price to grow? The ability to wholesale (via some form of delivery) to asian grocers/restaurants or to get products into grocery chains like walmart.

My parents are retired. They have some land. As far as i know, there are no Asian groceries/farmer markets that feature these products around where they live but there is a relative Asian population (Florida, hot weather) and I was thinking that perhaps it might be a good idea to grow the various Thai vegetables (gapow, lemon grass, bi-ma-grut, thai chili etc) that are often hard to find in the USA depending on where you live and can be very expensive. At the moment, I know zero about gardening and I am just wondering if you think this is a realistic source of income and if its worth the time to actually do the research. Any idea how much the various thai vegetables sell for, which would be the most profitable in terms of time/price to grow? The ability to wholesale (via some form of delivery) to asian grocers/restaurants or to get products into grocery chains like walmart.

If you really want to know where the supply is for these ingredients, try going to a Thai restaurant and asking them where they get them. You'll probably find that these things are easy to find in wholesale, but not in retail as there may not be as much demand.

As for where to sell such produce; I know in our area some of the smaller Asian markets sell stuff that has been grown in small gardens. Try going to the small markets and ask them if they'd be willing to sell your stuff. I doubt there will be much profit in it on a small scale though.

Sounds like a good idea, if like you say you have plenty of spare land.

You would maybe have to grow, and sell a lot though to make it work but maybe would be a good hobby as well.

Better than the spare land not doing anything !!!

We all gotta eat and specialty foods are always popular.

In Santa Monica the farmers markets were always sold out - normal hi-end Farang restaurants get more money than Thai also.

California Cuisine is world famous and often features only one or two exotic vegetables with the main course.

Look to hydroponic & pesticide-free cultivation - which ya gonna need were you to approach the big guns.

I predict a huge success. Do it.

BR>Jack

Do a search of online suppliers of Thai produce and ingredients in the US. You can get an idea of the prices they ask, sometimes very shocking! One site sells 80 kaffir lime leaves (bai ma-krut) for US$15 or lemon grass for US$2 a stalk. The online sites seem to import most of the items they sell so they might well be interested in a source of locally grown produce. Here's a link to a story about such a company that works out of a small town in Iowa: http://www.somethingthai.com/in_the_news.html

If I had land in Florida I would definitely look into growing vegetables and spices for Thai cooking as there seems to be a growing market. There is also an outfit in Florida which runs a nursery business, shipping tropical fruit trees as seedlings to home gardeners around the country, perhaps another idea...

As JD has said I would look at a farmers type market, you are selling at a retail level and not wholesale.

I think its a great idea as this stuff can also be hard to find in Australia as well.

Also as JD said, look at going organic its a higher value product.

As far as i know, there are no Asian groceries/farmer markets that feature these products around where they live but there is a relative Asian population (Florida, hot weather) and I was thinking that perhaps it might be a good idea to grow the various Thai vegetables (gapow, lemon grass, bi-ma-grut, thai chili etc) that are often hard to find in the USA depending on where you live and can be very expensive.

I'm not sure you would find enough demand for your supply, although in this day and age of e-commerce, web-based shopping and next day shipping, anything is possible. I think it's a really cool idea.

I've often thought about opening up small food stands specializing in authentic Thai cuisine or maybe a mix of Indian, Thai, Malay and/or Singaporean on different days, but was concerned about both supply for ingredients and actual demand for authentic flavors. Since being back in the US for a bit, I've tried several different Thai restaurants in several different states. The food was almost always "dumbed down," whether on purpose to suit the clientele, or because they had bad chefs and/or inferior ingredients. Only on rare occasions was the food anywhere close to authentic, and in those few cases, it was usually only the tom yum.

My suggestion would be to not limit your early planning scope to just Thai ingredients. Take a look at other Asian cuisines as well as Middle Eastern and South American. Maybe there are other "boutique" ingredients that can be grown as well.

I also think that demand for new products has to be created. I don't think it will be a "Field of Dreams" scenario (i.e., if you grow it, people will come). Once you figure out what to grow and how much to try to grow, someone will have to get out and market the products like crazy to make sure everything is sold before spoiling.

Think of it in terms of a business model. FedEx was one of the great business models of all time because they created demand for a product that never existed prior to it. You have a really good idea and maybe it will never make anyone rich, but it would still need to create a demand to make it profitable and worthwhile. Good luck.

Just another indicator ...

BR>Jack

http://www.bangkokpost.com/business/market...-glut-to-europe

We live presently in Atlanta, and we can find at one of the many asian farmers markets ( mostly korean owed)just what food stuffs we want. There are also the mom and pop small stores run by Thai or Viets or Chinese or Laotians that teem in the north of the city. On the days our Wat is open, a farmers market of sorts takes place on its grounds. Prices just aren't that high. Someone mentioned a bag of 80 k. lime leaves for $15 We would pay $1.99 if we didn't grow our own ( gotta drag the dang things into the house for the winter) We grow alot of our own veges or grab what we want from our viet friends large garden.

I'd check with asian food wholesalers as to what their criteria is to purchase your goods, and what goods they find difficult to obtain. If you can obtain what their present purchase prices are for items you might wanna grow, it'd give you an idea of what your break even profit point would be.