Market Assistant
Carolina Flowers Market Assistant
Marshall, NC
Part-time hourly, non-exempt position
Seasonal: April 2023-Holidays with the possibility to grow into another role.
Thursdays, 7:30 a.m. - 3:30 p.m.
Friday, 7:30 a.m. - 3:30 p.m.
Saturday, 6:30 a.m. - 2:30 p.m.
$16/hr.
To begin April 2023
Opportunity for more hours possible depending on performance. This is a great opportunity to get involved with Carolina Flowers and show us your skills. Our last two Market Assistants were promoted to full-time positions. This is not to be expected necessarily, but it is possible!
Carolina Flowers is Asheville’s flagship flower company, providing flowers from our fields to customers all over the metropolitan area through our delivery business. We also offer floral design services for weddings and events and sell our blooms at farmers markets.
Our shop, Carolina Flowers Mercantile, serves as both our retail showcase and our production area. All blooms come here after they leave the farm for processing, storage and arranging. It’s an exciting and beautiful place to work!
The Market Assistant will be responsible for assisting the Farm Manager, Product Coordinator, floral staff and owner in preparing for farmers markets, including harvesting flowers, drying flowers, processing flowers, storing and organizing flowers, bunching and bouquet making, wrapping, loading the van, driving to market, setting up at market, using an iPad POS system to make sales, cleaning up at market, putting away supplies and tidying the workspace.
Job Description
The Market Assistant should encapsulate the spirit of Carolina Flowers with an upbeat, positive attitude and a genial, kind demeanor. The Market Assistant must be resilient and able to work outdoors in all weather conditions, including heat and rain and snow.
On Thursdays, the Market Assistant will assist the Farm Manager and other farmers with harvest. On Fridays, the Market Assistant will assist with harvest and begin market prep. On Saturdays, the Market Assistant will load the van for market and work the market booth, making sales, answering questions and building relationships with clients.
You must be a team player! At Carolina Flowers, we’ve spent years developing our growing practices, and we’re looking for people who can learn and execute our techniques. Good communication skills are required as you will be expected to ask clarifying questions to make sure you understand the processes. You must be open minded and able to receive feedback and direction.
Farming is a rewarding job, but it can be repetitive. You must be able to work on repetitive tasks for long periods of time regardless of the weather.
Duties
- Harvesting flowers while adhering to handling requirements
- Occasional farm maintenance and weeding
- Monitoring for pests and disease
- Clean up
- Keeping records on the computer and on paper
- Understanding proper harvest stage, necessary harvest conditions and post-harvest handling and processing, including drying
- Dead-heading and topping plants to ensure continued production and proper physical structure.
- Post harvest handling of flowers
- Rotating buckets in the cooler, labeling harvests and consolidating
- Bunching and wrapping for market
- Arranging flowers
- Loading the market van
- Setting up the market booth
- Building relationships with customers and establishing report
- Making sales
- Operating a iPhone and/or iPad-based POS system
- Maintaining a clean and organized work space
- Assisting with deliveries and event work sometimes
- Many duties not listed here
Requirements
- Must be able to lift and carry 50 pounds on a regular basis
- You MUST be able to listen to feedback on your work and use this information to improve
- Manual dexterity
- An upbeat, positive attitude that comes across in everything you do
- Enthusiastic team player
- Organized and efficient
- Resilient and indefatigable
- Punctual and reliable
- Farming and sales experience is a plus