Raising Earthworms: Starting A Small Business

So you have an earthworm bed or two and want to make a profit from your hard work and start a business. You can put your earthworms in cups and sell to established bait and tackle shops or you can open your own shop or do both. My father started out by selling wholesale and eventually opened up his own shop.
In my opinion selling wholesale is a lot tougher with smaller returns. You have to establish a territory, visit the shops, convince the business owners to buy your worms and do a lot of driving. You have to sell your earthworms at a competitive lower price for bulk and you have to stand behind your product. That means that if worms die they have to be replaced.
I was a sales rep for a company when my father was getting his shop established and did a lot of local driving own my own. At the time, my dad had four large worm beds and an over abundance of earthworms. He got a business license and put up a sign on some property he owned and before you knew it fishermen were stopping by to buy worms. He put fifty in each cup and they couldn't sell fast enough. As a sales rep, I would run into fishing tackle wholesalers on the road and asked them to drop by my dads place and see if they could help get him into selling tackle.
He started selling cane poles, hooks, bobbers, leads and even bought a tank to sell minnows and shiners. But his main product were the earthworms. They were easy to maintain and the overhead consisted of buying Styrofoam cups and lids, bags of feed, water for the beds and paying someone to count and cup the worms. If he had known that people would actually pay for the casings he would have sold that too but he gave it away to friends. His shop gained a good reputation and was always busy. I worked for him part time maintaining the beds and digging earthworms. He got out of selling earthworms wholesale and sold strictly from his small business from then on.