RALEIGH - Farmers, manufacturers and food processors from across North Carolina gathered at the State Fairgrounds on Wednesday with one mission: to woo Wal-Mart.

Representatives of the world's largest retailer want more local vendors to supply its flagship stores and Sam's Clubs. The one-day symposium was designed to teach prospective suppliers how to win favor with Wal-Mart purchasers.

"It's a lot like dating," said Anthony Shipman, a Charlotte consultant who helps minority-owned businesses sell goods and services to retail chains and other large corporations.

Small-business owners are eager to tap retailers on the scale of Wal-Mart, which can generate major sales and consistent paychecks, despite the potential headaches, including notoriously shrewd negotiations on price and contract terms.

For Wal-Mart, local sourcing is an opportunity to impress an increasingly conscientious public concerned about the national trade deficit, rising fuel prices and environmental concerns related to long-distance transport and shipping. That benefit can outweigh the hassle of dealing with greater numbers of small and relatively unsophisticated suppliers.

The Raleigh symposium was Wal-Mart's second in the Southeast, and the company is considering holding more. Including Sam's Club, Wal-Mart has 20 stores in the Triangle and 151 statewide.

Marion Towles, who manages the Wal-Mart off U.S. 70 in Raleigh, said 3.5 percent to 5 percent of her store's merchandise is from local sources, meaning it comes from vendors who sell to no more than 50 stores or across five Wal-Mart sales districts.

The percentage is higher in produce, where "locally grown" labels can markedly boost sales, she said.

Her store once sold more than 3,500 pounds of North Carolina yams in five days, she said, with help from a promotion of locally grown produce. The most common local products include pickles, strawberries, jelly, cookies, sauces, flour and corn, she said.

On a broader scale, Wal-Mart recognizes that local suppliers often have a more intimate understanding of local needs, which are not always in sync with regional or national trends, said Excell Lafayette, Wal-Mart's supplier development director.

"Florida is not the same as California," he said.

What Wal-Mart wants

In North Carolina, Wal-Mart is looking to buy more locally produced textiles, apparel, furniture and especially agricultural products. The company reports that it bought $4 billion worth of goods from 1,829 state vendors in the 12 months that ended in February 2007, the latest data available.

"The key here is reaching out to our communities who can provide products that meet our customers' needs," Lafayette said.

That's a big welcome mat for Allan Henderson, who wants to increase his business with Wal-Mart.

He was getting phone numbers and e-mail addresses Wednesday to take back to his family apple farm in Hendersonville, which he says is the largest producer of fresh, sliced apples in the Southeast.

Getting in the door at Wal-Mart wasn't easy, said Henderson, who courted the company for five years before getting to the business equivalent of first base: a vendor registration.

The process spanned multiple documents, several trips to Wal-Mart's headquarters in Bentonville, Ark., and prerequisites such as a UPC code for products, a $2 million business insurance policy and a registration with Dun & Bradstreet, which rates private companies' financial stability. Other big retailers have similar requirements.

But last year, it all came through for Henderson, who sold about $55,000 worth of sliced apples to Wal-Mart. "Now we want to grow that volume by selling to Wal-Mart distribution centers," he said.

The biggest challenge small producers face in courting big resellers is finding the right person to talk to, the "yes man" as they put it. At most major retailers, purchasing decisions have to go through many layers of bureaucracy, and multiple department heads often signed off on them.

"You're a small guy dealing with a conglomerate," said Steve Johnson, who sells Uncle Yammy's grilling sauces and seasonings out of Greenville to several large retailers.

He sold to Wal-Mart for about a year beginning in 2002 but couldn't keep pace with the retail chain's demanding delivery schedule. Now he's back with more capacity and is trying to re-establish the relationship.

He and others concede that Wal-Mart, a notoriously tough negotiator, has the buying power to set prices and contract terms in its favor.

"At the end of the day, you could end up paying Wal-Mart just to do business with you," said Shipman, the Charlotte consultant.

Still, the potential sales volume and reliability of payments associated with Wal-Mart make it worthwhile for many aggressive companies.

Smaller companies -- with less than $30 million in annual sales -- have a lower success rate in scoring and sustaining sales contracts with big retailers, he said.

"Most small companies don't have the money or staying power to keep the dating process going," Shipman said. "It can take two or three years to get some traction."

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