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- Service, Organic Growing
Among Farmers’ Market Trends
- By Eric Gibson
Western Corresponent
- Going organic, friendly service, aesthetically pleasing displays, featured local produce, entertainment and longer seasons are some trends of farmers’ markets around the country.
A call for more organic products, both in amount and in diversity is one trend in farmers markets, according to Peter Jankay, administrator of the San Luis Obispo County Farmers’ Market Association in San Luis Obispo, Calif.
“We’re meeting this challenge by being sure that those organic growers who drop out are replaced with other organic growers with a similar product mix.” Jankay says. At present, organics make up about 10% of the volume at the county markets.
When it comes to display, Jankay says that growers generally are getting better at merchandising their products. They are recognizing that customers want to see produce that is clean, fresh, very good tasting and vine-ripe. “All these things are what made farmers’ markets popular in the first place,” Jankay says. “Growers are simply getting better at delivering what customers want.
“More and more of our growers are learning how to be friendly and outgoing, rather than reserved,” Jankay adds. “They’re remembering faces, and they’re smiling more.
“Display makes a huge difference. A person can have a mountain of peaches in one display and it looks junkie, while another grower’s mound of peaches may look great. The other grower may have put it together a little more meticulously, or put it in lugs or in baskets, and each individual fruit is very high-quality, so that people don’t feel they have to go through the pile to find a good piece of fruit. It not only has to taste good, it has to look good too.”
“Our organization works hard to maintain an image of quality at the market,” Jankay adds. “When we see junk, we tell the grower to pack it up. The customers know there may be some variation in quality, but we will not allow growers to dump produce at the market.”
This year the organization tried something different that worked well in promoting the markets, by mailing coupons to each person in a mail route within a two-mile radius of the market. “We found this much cheaper than going door-to-door trying to hang them on door knobs,” Jankay says. The block mailing required that the mail pieces be prepared, packaged and assorted in a certain way, which a mail service helped to do. “Each coupon was good for a free basket of strawberries, and this was at a time of season when strawberries were at the best, so customers were really getting something of value,” Jankay says.
At the same time, the promotion didn’t cost the association too much money. The coupons could be redeemed at any grower’s booth who was selling strawberries, and the growers handed in their coupons to the market for redemption at market value. “Whatever their price was at the market for their strawberries, that’s what the market paid the individual grower,” Jankay said.
Though many supermarkets have tried to emulate farmers’ markets’ success by adding greater produce variety and bringing in locally grown products, Jankay says he’s never viewed supermarkets as direct competition. “We have one market that was located in the parking lot of a supermarket. And it always resulted in an increase in sales at the supermarket on market day. Customers might buy their strawberries at the farmers’ market, and then go into the supermarket to buy their canned goods and milk, etc. After 12 years, however, the supermarket wanted to develop their property, and asked our market to leave. It wasn’t six months after we had left that they were telling us that Saturday used to be their busiest day, and that they would like us to come back.”
“There’s some things that the supermarkets will never be able to compete with us on,” Jankay continues, “such as freshness of the product. Then there’s the pickup trucks at the markets and the whole ambiance of the farmers being there, and the opportunity to ask the growers: ‘How did you to grow this?’ and ‘When did you plant it?’ This is impossible to do at supermarkets. People come here to talk and to see friends and to visit and there’s a whole social fabric that’s developed. It’s a very different buzz than at the supermarkets.”
“And the supermarket can’t possibly provide all the unique varieties people find at the farmers’ markets. And certainly not the quality. One grower brings big leaves of lemon grass, for example, that you’d never see at the supermarket. You might find lemon grass in little packets at the supermarket, but you won’t find the beautiful, foot-long leaves of lemon grass that this grower brings to the market.”
“The history of our market is very rich. It was established in 1853 and has been in continuous operation ever since. In the late ‘70’s, we started looking into what our customers want and need, and that meant diversifying away somewhat from a producer-only market for fruits and vegetables. So we started allowing cheeses at the markets and in the mid-80’s, bread,” said Patty Brand, executive director with the Friends of the St. Paul Farmers Market, St. Paul, Minn.
“We still maintain a producer-only market, and we’ve added value-added items like salsas and pestos and even canned goods. We have one person who makes soup and sells it to go. We also have another lady who does flavored vinegars, and flavored sugars and dips. It all has to be locally produced, and every grower that enters the market has to be approved by the board. If it’s a family or individually locally owned business, the board is willing to look at exceptions.
The producer-only image, Brand says, is a definite plus for the market. “In Minneapolis I know there are some farmers’ markets that include dealers, and we get lots of customers that drive over from Minneapolis to come to the St. Paul market because they tell us they know that they are buying local here. And they don’t have to worry about where it’s coming from. The lady who produces the flavored vinegars, for example, puts every cherry or every boysenberry in the bottles by hand.”
“Probably our most interesting display at the market is the lady who sells flavored vinegars. She hand-dips the top of every bottle of vinegar in wax to seal it, and ties a bow around each bottle. The products are tiered, so the back products are as visible as the front products, and she always has a fresh bouquet of flowers on her table.
“The truth is, some of our growers display their products very tastefully, and some just throw their produce on the table and hope that someone will buy it. These people are farmers because they love growing and they love the land, but that doesn’t make them a marketer. Some of them have marketing skills and some don’t.
“One thing we’ve been experimenting with more and more in promoting the market is having live music or other entertainment at the market. It’s a little unclear how many of our customers really want this - some say they are there just for the food, while others seemed drawn by the entertainment as well. It does seem to attract a different clientele. Last year we had a different Twins player come to the market to sign autographs, and that was a big hit. People loved it! Next year, we’re hoping to have hockey players from the new NHL hockey team that will begin playing in St. Paul this fall.”
The threat of supermarket competition, to Brand, is not an insurmountable one. “What we have at the farmers’ markets is a fresher product,” she says. “We’ve seen Rainbow stores here run pictures of local farmers in their ads, and say they sell locally-produced products. But still, at the farmers’ markets, it’s a different experience. Going to the supermarket is like a job, you go there to get your food, but at the farmers’ market you meet the producer and meet friends, and it’s a whole social experience.”
One of the things managers really need to stay on top of, according to Brand, is the rules and regulations of the market, and what the growers have signed up for in the spring that they will be bringing to the market, and what they’re bringing to market now. “That’s a major issue here at St. Paul markets. We do field-checks, and people have to fill out an application every year and tell us what they’re growing and how much, and when they expect to bring it to the market. So if there’s any question about what they’re bringing to the market, you can go and look at their application, and if it’s not there, it had better be in the field. Because if you go out and check and it’s not, there are major fines.” He said the first infraction is $500, the second infraction is a year out of the market plus $500, and the third infraction is expulsion from the market.
“The manager is also there for the customers’ needs and concerns. The growers might be using boxes that they picked up at the grocery store, for example, that might say ‘California’ are ‘Colorado,’ and the customer comes to the manager and says ‘Look at this, it’s not locally grown.’ And the manager needs to explain this.
“Or if the customer comes and says that they got home and the corn wasn’t any good, then the manager needs to negotiate some sort of replacement with the grower. You really need to be a counselor and a business person and everything else. I always say you need to be a jack-of-all trades if you want to be a manager at a market“
According to Esther Kovari, president of the 26-member New Mexico Farmers’ Marketing Association, a prominent trend in New Mexico farmers’ markets is longer and longer seasons. “The growers are trying to extend their seasons, so the markets are opening earlier. This year some of the markets opened in April for the first time ever. We have severe winters here, and the growers are using greenhouses, row covers and cold frames so they can get earlier crops. One farmer brought cucumbers into the market in May that he had raised in greenhouses. Growers are also planting fall crops to extend the season on the other end.”
The newest wrinkle in promoting the markets for the association was to set up a statewide Web site (www.farmersmarketsnm.org) for all the farmers’ markets in New Mexico. The site lists all of the markets in the state, as well as special events. “It’s really hard to access how much immediate impact it’s making on market sales,” Kovari says. “At this point it’s mainly a tool for raising overall consciousness about farmers’ markets in the state.”
Another promotional effort has been to distribute leaflets at shopping malls and on cars in parking lots. “Over and over we hear that word of mouth is what brings people to the markets, and we feel the personal touch works best,” Kovari says. “We still do radio and TV and print ads, but we’re adding more direct methods like leafleting.”
“A few markets are doing a promotion with ‘market dollars,’ Kovari adds. “This is a cross-promotion with neighboring businesses, where downtown restaurants give out market dollars to their customers, good for a discount at the market, and possibly vice-versa.”
Recently the Albuquerque Journal agreed to do a biweekly column on farmers’ markets called “This Week at the Farmers’ Markets,” featuring different markets, and what’s up and coming at the markets.
An increase in natural foods and natural foods products in the state, particularly in the Santa Fe area where there are four natural foods markets is an issue that’s somewhat new for farmers’ markets.
“Ten years ago there really wasn’t much competition in terms of freshness and variety, but now that’s not the case, particularly in the cities. Natural foods stores are emulating the farmers’ markets in trying to bring in very fresh and high-quality produce. It’s a challenge for the farmers’ markets, because the produce comes in very fresh from California and Mexico. One advantage the markets can play up is to promote the locally grown issue, because the natural food stores aren’t buying much local.”
Some markets are also having trouble finding farmers. “This is a rapidly urbanizing state,” Kovari says. “With The Friends of the Farmers’ Market program, we do educational programs to train and encourage farmers, as well as help raise public awareness about the importance of farming. The existence of farmland around our towns is very critical to the quality of life here.”
Eric Gibson is the co-author of The New Farmers’ Market. For more information e-mail eagibson@pacbell.net.
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