Best Crops To Sell Based On Science

Every season, farmers make decisions that shape their success. Some are big—like infrastructure investments. Others seem small—like whether or not to grow that one underperforming crop again.

But those “small” decisions add up.

That’s why we created the Crop Farm Menu Engineering Worksheet. It’s a simple, practical tool designed to help farmers evaluate what crops are worth keeping, improving, or letting go.

It’s inspired by a concept from the restaurant world called menu engineering—a method chefs and managers use to analyze menu items based on two key metrics: profitability and popularity.

Because the best crops to sell are the ones that make money and that your customers want.

What Restaurants Taught Us About Farming

In restaurants, every dish takes up space, ingredients, and prep time. Sound familiar?

Menu engineering helps restaurant owners figure out which dishes make money and which ones don’t—so they can build menus that serve both customers and the business.

We took that same logic and applied it to crop planning.

Just like menu items, every crop you grow uses land, labor, and resources. Some earn their keep. Some don’t. And that’s exactly what this worksheet is designed to show.

What It Does

The worksheet helps you compare your crops based on two things:

• Profitability
• Popularity

With just a few data points—what each crop costs you to produce, and how many units you sold—you get a visual breakdown of how each crop is performing. It sorts everything into four categories:

• ⭐ Stars – High profit, high popularity. These are your keepers.
• 🧩 Puzzles – Profitable but not popular. Could a tweak in marketing or presentation help?
• 🐴 Plow Horses – Popular but not profitable. Can you adjust pricing or production?
• 🐶 Dogs – Low profit, low popularity. You probably already know these need to go.

You don’t need to be an economist to use it. Just plug in your numbers in the gray boxes—everything else is handled for you.

Why It Matters

This tool isn’t going to transform your farm overnight. But it will give you a clearer sense of where your time and resources are going—and where they’re really paying off.

If you're running a CSA, managing a farm stand, or planning your next season, this can help you:

• Spot what crops are working and what aren’t
• Make intentional decisions based on data, not guesswork
• Save time and resources by trimming the fat

How to Use It

We’ve set it up to work quarterly, but you can copy the sheet and rename the tabs to fit whatever time period works best—monthly, seasonal, whatever makes sense for your operation.

You only need to fill in the gray fields (cost per unit and number sold). Everything else is calculated automatically, including the crop category and placement on the scatter plot.

Try It for Yourself

We built this to be practical, not perfect. It’s a decision support tool—one we use with growers who want to be more intentional about what they produce.

👉 Download the Crop Farm Menu Engineering Worksheet

Give it a shot. Run your numbers. See what it tells you. Then make your next planting plan with more confidence—and maybe a few less “dogs” on the list.

Need help interpreting your results? We’re here. Get in touch and we’ll walk through it with you.

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