Farmers Market Adapts
New rules include pre-ordering, time windows for pickup, and one-way foot traffic
The Swarthmore Farmers Market is opening on Saturday, June 6. There will be strawberries and scallions, cheese and chickens, peanut butter cookies and portobello mushrooms, just as there are every June.
Other things will be different.
For months, the farmers market staff have been strategizing for summer 2020. Their goal is providing the community with fresh, local food, and supporting local farmers and other vendors, in a safe and convenient way.
“Access to fresh food is core to our mission,” says Shannon Elliott, the market’s marketing and social media manager. “That will continue.” But, because of the COVID-19 pandemic and the need for social distancing, the community gathering that has long been part of the experience is on hold for now.
“All of our preparations, our protocols, our plans have one goal: moving as many people as possible through the area very quickly and safely while getting them the food they want,” says Market Manager Andy Rosen.
Here are some things the farmers market team wants you to know.
Most of your favorite vendors will still be at the market.
Beechwood Orchards, Big Sky Bakery, Davidson Exotic Mushrooms, Good Spoon Foods, Ironstone Farm, Kneehigh Farm, Linden Dale Farm, and Riverside Blooms will be there every week.
Many others, including Market Day Canelé, Taste of Puebla, Nether Providence Soap Company, Macungie Mountain Herb Farm, and One Village Coffee will rotate through.
All food must be ordered and paid for in advance.
You will order online and pay for your items in advance. You can do this on the Swarthmore Farmers Market page of Farm to City, an umbrella organization for local farmers markets.
Or, if you prefer, you can go straight to the websites of the individual vendors.
Ordering for the June 6 market opens on Tuesday, June 2.
Each producer will have their own ordering deadlines (check the individual websites), but it’s best to order before Thursday afternoon for that Saturday’s market.
The vendors will pre-package your order and label it with your name. You will swing by their table to pick it up.
There will be no retail shopping at the market itself. The vendors will bring only preordered items, so there will be no juicy peaches or fragrant tamales to tempt you.
The market’s hours will be shorter, and you will have a specific time window for pickup, based on your last name.
The market will run only from 10 a.m. to noon (at least at first).
More importantly, however, you can only pick up your food during a certain window:
A-F 10-10:30
G-L 10:30-11
M-R 11-11:30
S-Z 11:30-noon
This will prevent overcrowding. Last year, the market averaged nearly 800 shoppers every week. “We just cannot open it up to 800 people at a time,” says Pat Francher, operations manager.
If you show up at a vendor’s booth during the wrong time window, your package will not be there.
If people in your household have more than one last name, make sure you remember whose name you used when ordering!
Foot traffic through the market will be one way.
Enter at the flagpole at Monument Park (corner of Park and Dartmouth avenues). You can line up on the sidewalk along Park Avenue. Safe distancing positions will be marked on the ground. Disabled access will be available. Other routes will be roped off.
You will exit at Lafayette Avenue near the fire station.
You must wear a mask, and you must maintain social distance.
This applies to vendors, too, who will also wear gloves. They will sanitize their tables every half hour.
There will be fewer vendors each week than in the past so their booths can be spaced further apart.
There will be no eating at the market. You’ll have to wait till you get home.
Repackaging tables, and a late table, will be located near the exit.
If you need to reorganize your packages, or transfer items into your own bags, you can do that at a designated repacking table near Lafayette Avenue. Hand sanitizer will be available there.
Also, if you miss your time window, your purchases should be available for pick up at the late table. (But please don’t miss your window.)
Volunteers will be available to help.
If you need help getting your purchases to your car, volunteers and wagons will be stationed near the exit.
Some things won’t be there.
The market will be focused on food this year (though Riverside Blooms will sell flowers weekly). There will be no music, no artists, no kids’ activities, no community-group booths. “In the future, we will bring back our community gathering space,” Elliott says.
In the meantime, the Farmers Market website will link to artists’ and musicians’ sites. “We’re trying to add in as many of the Makers Market artists too,” Elliot says, “so we can keep that connection with the arts, even though we can’t physically represent them at the market.”
Elliot also hopes shoppers will engage with each other on social media, even if they can’t chat and share food at the market. “We’ll try to do what we can digitally to get people to share their favorite vendors,” she says. “All those fun things to get people excited in new ways.”
“We will all miss the social aspects of the market,” says Jon Glyn of Farm to City. “Going to the market on Saturday mornings will definitely feel and look different. But one thing will remain the same: by Saturday afternoon your home will be full of all the delicious, nutritious foods you’ve been enjoying from the market all these years.”
To sign up for the Swarthmore Farmers Market newsletter, go to swarthmorefarmersmarket.org and scroll all the way down.
Still have questions? Look on the Swarthmore Farmers Market section of the Farm to City website, or email Jon Glyn at jon@farmtocity.org or Andy and team at marketmanager@swarthmorefarmersmarket.org.
Farmers Market Vendor Profiles
Linden Dale Farms
“We are a family owned and operated goat dairy,” says Abe Mellinger, whose family has been on the farm for seven generations. The barn was built in 1797. Linden Dale makes high-end artisan goat cheeses which they sell along with their yogurt, caramel, fudge, meat, and milk. Their Tomme, a cheese made from raw milk, is a particular customer favorite, as is their Laughing Lindy, a soft, aged cheese. “At Swarthmore we sell a lot of yogurt,” Mellinger says. “The Greek style is really, really good.”
Taste of Puebla
“My mother is the chef and mastermind behind all the flavors,” Isaias Castaneda says. The family’s Mexican food business, in Kennett Square, is owned and run by the Castaneda parents together with Isaias, his older brother, and his two sisters. They sell burritos, taco kits, pozole soups, corn chips, guacamole, and salsa. Castaneda is particularly excited about their tamales: chicken, pork, and a vegan version with bell peppers, portobello mushroom, and tomato, seasoned with epazote. “It’s really rare,” he says.
Beechwood Orchards
Melissa Allen’s great-grandfather started this fruit and vegetable farm in Adams County over a century ago. “We have lots of different varieties,” she says. “Lots of different kinds of apricots, different kinds of plums.” They grow about 50 varieties of apples. Honeycrisp, and a new variety called Evercrisp, are customer favorites, though Allen herself is a fan of Pink Ladies. They’ll have strawberries on June 6, with cherries either that day or soon after.
