Markets Continued from Page 1
for people who didn’t feel comfortable shopping in person. The organization has since partnered with The FruitGuys in San Francisco—which specialized in delivering fresh fruit tobusinesses prior to thepandemic—to run its e-commerce site andmake food-box deliveries. With her mangos just now coming into season, Riverside County farmer Debbie Chamberlain said business at the three Pasadena farmers markets she attends has been “as good as ever.” She sold out of fruitwithinhoursof opening. Even though she experienced “major drops” in sales to restaurants last year, she said, they were offset bymore people coming to themar- kets due to restaurants being closed and people cooking more at home. Now that the market is not requiring people to line up, traffic ismore efficient and customers are “willing to comemore often,” she said. That includes some of her regulars who are seniors andwho had stopped coming to themarkets last year due to fears of the virus. They’re nowback. Farmers market attendance may have picked up, but Santa Barbara County rancher and egg producer Steve Zaritsky said the people who come are now a dif- ferent crowd.He’s lostmanyof his regulars who could afford his products—and who used to comewith entire shopping lists. “Nowweget a lot of looky-loos,”he said. “You see people walking around with nothing in their arms—no bags, no carts, no nothing—and they stop by just to see what’s this andwhat’s that.” Before the pandemic, Zaritsky was at- tending 18 Southern California farmers markets and earning $15,000 a week. He’s now bringing in about $1,400 from two markets. Some markets have closed, he noted, and staffing them has been a challenge due to a lack of sales. Though he’s added some food-service accounts, Zaritsky said convincing restaurants that are trying to get back on their feet to buy his organic eggs at more than four times the price of conventional eggs has been “almost an impossible feat.” “It’s been a really crazy roller coaster ride,” he said. “I’mjust trying tomake sure I get enough money to feed the animals when everybodywants theirmoney.” (ChingLeeisanassistanteditorofAgAlert. Shemaybe contactedat clee@cfbf.com.)
crowds thatusedtokeeptheseasonalmar- ket bustling. Dan Best, coordinator of Certified Farmers Markets of Sacramento County, whichoperatesthemarket,estimatedabout 20%ofofficesintheareaarebeingoccupied. “It’s a ghost town,” he said. “There’s no one downtown. You can’t bring the farm- ers down there just for an exhibition.” To be profitable, pedestrian markets such as Capitol Mall need “a lot of trans- actions,” Best said. He noted that three “thriving” downtown farmers markets, which saw heavy foot traffic, closed last year and won’t reopen this year because “they were based upon full-capacity of- fice buildings.” He said he was uncertain whether the Capitol Mall market would reopen “because it was so lousy last year.” Afewrestaurant customers “saved it” for some vendors, he said, so themarket this year ispromoting itself asa“chef’smarket” to drawmore food-service business. Even though the lunch crowd downtown re- mains “meager,” he noted chefs are shop- ping at themarket again. Ingar Russ of Loving Nature Farm in Clarksburg said it helps that themarket is trying to accommodate chefs by provid- ing themconvenient parking and carts to load up. She pointed to Juan Barajas, who runs Savory Café in Woodland and who had stopped by her booth. Barajas said
Chef Juan Barajas of Savory Cafe in Woodland loads produce he purchased at the Capitol Mall Farmers Market in Sacramento, which is trying to cater to chefs by offering convenient parking.
it’s been easier for him to shop at Capitol Mall because vendors allowhim to buy in bulk—and theygivehimachef’sdiscount. Though chefs are returning, Nick Barnett, who works for Vierra Farms in West Sacramento, said themarket’s main customers are people who stroll down from office buildings during lunch. They tend to buy only what they can carry, he said.That’swhyhechangedtopre-bagging more items this year and selling themat a flat price rather than by the pound, which “generally doesn’t sell here,” he said. “I try to make it super easy, just imple- menting certain marketing strategies to combat the lack of traffic around here,” Barnett said.
A San Francisco nonprofit, which oper- ates several farmersmarkets in the city, in- cludingtheFerryPlazaFarmersMarket,said itsSaturdayandThursdayeveningmarkets arenowabout 90%of pre-pandemic levels, thoughweekdaymarkets feel closer to60%. TheFerryBuildingusedtoget foot traffic fromthreereliablepopulations—Financial District workers, tourists and chefs—“that areonlyslowlycomingback,”saidChristine Ferran, executive director of Center for Urban Education about Sustainable Agriculture. ItsTuesdayandThursdaymar- kets were always “really robust,” she said. Before, peoplewerenot onlycoming to the farmers market but also shopping inside the Ferry Building. Some of those shops closed during the pandemic, she noted, “so thebuilding is less of adrawright now.” “Deathby a thousand cuts: There’s a lot of different reasonswhyourweekdaymar- kets are not coming back as robustly, but weknowtheNo. 1 reason isofficeemploy- ees still working fromhome,” Farren said. Also absent are the more than 3,000 students who used to come through the market on their field trips or for cooking classes, she said. But she noted the San FranciscoUnified School District has said it plans to return to in-person learning in August. Even so, she said it remains un- clear what the policywill be on field trips. Otheractivities thathavenot returnedto themarket include sampling and cooking demos, Farren said. The market has con- tinued its onlineorderingplatform, which redirected sales lost from restaurants, she said. During the pandemic, CUESA start- ed its own curated farmers market box
The Produce Safety Rule is Here; ARE YOU READY?
Farm Employers Labor Service (FELS), an a liated company of the California Farm Bureau (CAFB), has partnered with the Safe Food Alliance through a California Department of Food and Agriculture grant contract, as their designated training provider for Central and Southern California, to conduct the required Produce Safety training for growers. Presented in a free two-day remote delivery webinar format! What sets Safe Food Alliance, FELS, and Farm Bureau apart is their total of over 100 years of experience and our dedication to providing technical guidance and leadership to the California agriculture community. Most farms are required to have at least one designated supervisor who has been trained in accordance with the Food Safety Modernization Act (FSMA) Produce Safety rule. Upon completion of the course, attendees will receive an o cial certi cate from the Association of Food & Drug O cials.
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14 Ag Alert July 21, 2021
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