New market to open with 41 vendors Saturday
The new Peterborough Regional Farmers' Market will have 41 vendors for its opening day Saturday with more still applying, organizers say.
Among the vendors are 25 third-party certified family farms, according to a press release issued Wednesday. This indicates that an independent body has verified that the farmers produce the goods they sell.
Vendors include all the farmers and artisans recently ousted from the Morrow Park farmers’ market : Ashburnham Farm Gaelic Garlic, McLean Berry Farm, Circle Organic, Otonabee Apiary, Finest Gourmet Fudge, Chef Marshall and Elixir.
There will be other local growers too, including Chick-a-biddy Acres, Kendal Hills Game Farm and more.
Warner Farm will offer products from the Niagara Region.
Fresh Urban Plate and La Mesita will be there along with new vendors Two Dishes Cookshop and Doo Doo's Bakery.
Willow's Bark, winner of the DBIA Win This Space contest, will also have a booth.
The new market will work with Donald Fraser's Farm to Table Culinary Tours for food events.
The new market, formed by vendors ousted from the Saturday Peterborough Farmers' Market earlier this spring, will be based at the Citi Centre apartment complex courtyard at Charlotte and Aylmer streets.
Peter Hughes, a local beekeeper, has stepped down from the board of directors of the Peterborough Regional Farmers’ Network to take the job of part-time market manager.
The evictions from the Morrow Park farmers’ market earlier this spring happened after simmering tensions between local farmers and resellers (who buy food from places such as the Ontario Food Terminal in Toronto and
resell, without necessarily telling the customer).
But the eviction letters to the farmers who were ousted stated that they were being ejected after they’d harassed others at the market.
Todd Noble, a farmer in Indian River who grows produce such as tomatoes and garlic, is leaving the Morrow Park farmers’ market after six years selling there to join the new market.
“Finally we have a market representing true local interests – and true local farmers,” he said in an interview Wednesday.
Lauren Nurse, a farmer in Stirling, was “booted out” of the Morrow Park market last year; she was told by the market that she was no longer welcome to sell her salad greens after all because other similar products were already on offer.
She said she was excited about the new market. “Shoppers can be secure knowing it’s all produced on a farm – and it doesn’t come from the food terminal,” she said.
Romeyn Stevenson, who operated Ashburnham Farm Gaelic Garlic in Bailieboro, is one of the five ousted from the Morrow Park market on May 1.
At his booth at the downtown farmers’ market on Wednesday, he said he’ll be pleased to be a part of the new Saturday market.
“The real question is, what will happen to the Morrow market?” he asked. “It’s kaput,” he predicted, saying that the ousted farmers have drawn a lot of clientele away.
Yet the organizers of the Morrow Park farmers’ market stated in a paid advertisement in Peterborough This Week on Wednesday that much of the criticism against them has been unfair.
“Our relationship with the Peterborough community has been tested,” begins the ad. “Some of the criticism has been justified.”
The ad says “there are two sides to every story” and that the market has “survived negative publicity, deliberate misrepresentation of our market, and the targeting of our vendors.”
It also maintains the vendors were removed for bullying and harassment as well as xenophobia.
“Adversity can be a source of strength and improvement: please, come grow strong with us again,” reads the ad.
The market board has been silent and not returned phone calls to media outlets in Peterborough since it made the decision to kick out the five vendors.