The Minnesota State Fair is big business. Consider the nearly 1.7 million people who passed through the gates this year each paying $12 admission ($9 in advance). Then there are the over 1,200 business licenses granted for the 12 day event. Vendors pony up to rent space based on front footage. For example, if a booth is ten feet wide facing a sidewalk or walkway they are assessed for 10 front feet. And if they are on a corner lot they pay for both sides. Institutional groups pay $70/ff, exhibits $90/ff and concessions $105/ff.
Food vendors, nearly 250 of them, pay a straight 15% commission, with beer and wine vendors paying a little more at 18.5%. And everyone is also billed separately for water, sewer and electricity. The Fair Commission receives $5-6 million on food and beer commissions and an equal amount comes into their coffers from frontage fees.
So who are the top food vendors? According to Jason DeRusha of CBS affiliate WCCO-TV in Minneapolis in 2011 the winner was Sweet Martha's Cookies. Their gross revenue for selling hot out of the oven freshly baked chocolate chip cookies was $2.5 million.
That's a lot of dough!
At a distant second was the Mouth Trap selling 2 tons of fried cheese curds a day ringing up a mere $862,262. And Cafe Caribe sold $780,000 of suds to wash down all the fair food like the 200,000 ears of corn sold by Corn Roast for $675,931.
The bottom line for vendors is the 25% of the total revenue that they pocket as profit. You can do the math. Not a bad take for 12 days of sales.
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