Do you need ideas for edible things to sell at school market day?
If you have approval to sell food in your booth (very important to get before you waste time planning this out), then your next order of business is to figure out what to sell that people like like!
What Foods Are Easy to Sell?
Foods that sell well are eye appealing. They are always packaged up nicely and also just look good to eat! It is easy to sell foods that are packaged up individually and displayed in a pleasing manner.
In this post, we’ll talk mostly about sweet treats because those are easy to put in individual bags or boxes.
Baked goods are great because everyone loves to spend a little bit of extra cash to treat for themselves, and I bet they’ll be hungry after shopping at all the other non-food item booths! 🙂
We will cover foods to make and sell that are great year-round, as well as holiday market items you can make with a Christmas theme. I think there is something for everyone to consider in the list below.
Tip: Make Sure You Are Allowed to Sell Food
Last year, my daughter wanted to sell desserts at her entrepreneur day booth, but it wasn’t allowed at that time.
We just found out that it is allowed this year, so we are brainstorming food to sell in her booth because it’s so easy to do and everyone who sells treats always makes a lot of money. 🙂
She is excited about starting a food business one day, so this is excellent practice for her.
We are going to test out various items at different price points to see what people like.
Of course, we are trying to find the cheapest item to produce that earns the most income, but we won’t know until we participate in the event!
Market Day Food Ideas (Sweet Treats to Make!)
I’ve written about school market day ideas before, but not really food that you can make (cookies, cakes, cupcakes, etc.), so I thought I’d write a quick post about the different easy foods to consider.
There’s no need to be a hero and try to make a complicated recipe for this.
Fully half of your sales ability will come from how well you package the food (I promise!). See #10 in this post about kid entrepreneur day ideas for our experience with differences in how products were displayed.
Without further ado, here are some handmade dessert ideas to sell at your next school event:
1) Puppy Chow Party Mix
This is a great thing to make if you are not big on baking or too young to do much baking (like 3rd grade or under), but you can easily measure out ingredients and mix them together.
Everyone loves puppy chow and you can package them up in little plastic baggies for sale.
2) Chocolate Dipped Butter Cookies
This recipe is a little bit more advanced, so I would recommend this for middle school or high school students.
If you are baking these for a holiday market event, you can sprinkle white, green, and red sprinkles onto the chocolate OR if you’re making them for another time of year you can change the color of the sprinkles. Easy peasy.
3) Lofthouse Style Soft Sugar Cookies
With pink icing and sprinkles, of course!
I have never met anyone that doesn’t love homemade Lofthouse style cookies, so these are sure to be a big hit. Especially if you make them on the larger size and package them up in a pretty wrapper topped with a bow or sticker.
See the packaging section below for ideas to accomplish this.
4) Sprinkle Recipes
I found a great source of a lot of colorful sprinkle recipes from pink Rice Krispie treats to white chocolate pretzels covered in rainbow sprinkles.
Over on Britt.co you can see many different colorful sprinkle dessert recipes and figure out which one would look the best at your booth.
Honestly, I think you could be very successful on market day even if all you did was create a colorful table display full of rainbow themed desserts!
How cool would that be?!
5) Flower Cups with M&Ms
I can’t believe how cute these are, and they would be easy to assemble, even for elementary school students if mom or dad helped.
You could display them by sticking them into a large piece of styrofoam.
Talk about an impressive booth display!
These flower cups would be so beautiful in your school market day. What a great dessert item to make and sell!
6) Hot Chocolate
Actually another great idea is hot chocolate. It’s simple, but it works because everyone loves it!
This is an especially good idea for holiday or Christmas markets because it will be cold outside.
Hot chocolate is easy to make at home and transport in a container that will keep the hot chocolate hot all day long.
You can sell it by the cup, and it barely costs anything to make, so it is a VERY profitable item to make and sell.
Pro tip: Hot chocolate is WAY easier than doing lemonade. Trust me.
My daughter sold hand-squeezed lemonade in her entrepreneur day booth one year, and it was the most work for the least amount of money.
I highly DO NOT recommend hand-squeezed lemonade! LOL
**If you DO make lemonade for sale, make sure it’s not hand-squeezed or you will be in for a LOT of work.**
7) Chocolate-Covered Pretzel Rods
There’s nothing I love more than a traditional salty & sweet dessert. These pretzel rods can be customized to suit just about any color combo.
These particular ones are pink & red for Valentine’s Day, but they could be just as easily red & green for Christmas!
8) Freeze Dried Candies
Nothing is hotter these days than freeze dried candy!
This only works if you have access to a freeze dryer – but if you do – its a big seller!
Kid’s love these as small gifts or to snack on while walking around the rest of Market Day.
Tips for Making a Lot of Food Sales at School Market Day
Whatever you do, make sure the food you make to sell is very pretty because everyone is attracted over to a gorgeous display.
Sometimes the wrapping that you do can make or break the sale, so keep that in mind.
The way you display the food is also important. Don’t just pile everything up into a single box and display it on your table.
Maybe get some cake stands or risers and make a little display section for every type of dessert that you’ve made.
Most food at market days are baked items or other desserts that are individually wrapped.
However, you can do drinks or other kinds of food if you wish.
I would just make sure to get permission if you plan on selling food that is NOT individually wrapped because most events prefer you to sell individually wrapped goods versus a slice of something out of a pan just because of the sanitary reasons.
I hope this post gave you some great ideas of the best desserts that are easy to make and sell at school events.
Whether you are in 1st / 2nd grade or 6th / 7th grade, you can find something in this list. If you need even more product ideas, Pinterest is a great resource.
One more thing – I didn’t recommend specific grades for every item because every kid is different.
My daughter could make very complicated recipes in the 5th grade, so I would never say the most difficult items are only for high school juniors and seniors!
Use your best judgment in deciding what’s best to make for your situation. Good luck with your booth.
I can’t wait to see what you can do, and I hope you learn a lot about entrepreneurship and make a lot of money in the process!
Ways to Make Your Bake Sale Items Irresistible!
If you didn’t know it before you will now. Packaging. Packaging. Packaging!
I feel so strongly about this that I wrote an entire post about it here —>>> SIX SUPER CUTE BAKE SALE PACKAGING IDEAS
When a potential customer walks up to your booth they will be scanning for a few different things, one is display.
If you have your food set up in a way that entices them to not only look but to also stick around then you have a better chance of making that sale.
Here are some really cool bake sale display options:
The next important element to making a sale will be the way your items are packaged.
While it would be amazing to have everything displayed out in the open. A lot of events nowadays want things to be individually wrapped.
**You can also have a small display with one of each item on it out in the open and have the ones for sale already wrapped up.**
In addition to the packaging options in the Bake Sale Packaging post mentioned above, here are some more of my favorites:
Once you:
1. get the customers to your table
2. get their attention and
3. show them the goods you then
4. have to give them some information. 
The way you do this is with a nice little blurb and some pricing points.
People love a story. I once got played by a 9 year old at a youth fair, and I would fall for it even today if she was standing in front of me.
She was selling handmade rings. They were just plain rings that were made with a piece of wire and a single bead.
I spent $13 right on the spot for a single ring because she had a little sign that showed her making the rings with a short backstory and the price of each one and then she looked me in dead in the eyes and said, “I spent a lot of time making these so the would be beautiful.”
In that little girl voice and with those big shiny eyes… Her booth was sold out by midday!
If you can incorporate a few of these elements into your food booth you will increase your chances of having a successful sale.
Good luck out there!
Related Posts:
- Bake Sale Fundraiser Dessert Ideas
- Easy School Market Day Items to Sell (mostly craft ideas)
- 21+ Best Summer Bake Sale Ideas
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