Morrow Park market offshoot to open Saturday
Farmcrest Marketplace at Trentwinds being run by former vice-president
A new Saturday morning marketplace will open this weekend at the Trentwinds International Centre on Lansdowne Street East, run by at least one former member of the Morrow Park farmers’ market.
Every member of the board of the Morrow Park market resigned in April, including longtime president Cindy Hope and vice-president Mark Jones, with plans to open a new market nearby.
On Thursday, the new Farmcrest Marketplace was announced in a press release.
The release has Jones stating that he’s grateful to be able to offer a new marketplace that will “help farmers and local businesses thrive while providing residents and tourists access to fresh local food.”
Jones could not be reached for comment on Thursday. Neither could any of the other former board members of the Morrow Park market.
The group had previously circulated applications seeking vendors for a new market west of Morrow Park at the corner of
A1
Lansdowne and Park streets; the former Canada Malt factory on the property is in the final stages of demolition as its owners prepare for a new development.
But on Thursday the owner of the Malt property, David McGee, wrote in a message to The Examiner that demolition is ongoing and the site wouldn’t be ready to have a market until July.
“I believe the same group has contracted with Trentwinds as an alternative but I’m not sure,” he wrote.
Farmcrest Marketplace will offer produce, artisan cheeses and bedding plants, the press release states.
Its summer outdoor season will run until Nov. 28, the release states, and the market plans to go inside the Trentwinds banquet space on the property for the winter.
The Morrow Park farmers’ market is not currently operating on Saturdays because it’s on city-owned property that is closed during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Jones (of T&R Jones Family Farm in Niagara-on-the-Lake) and Hope (of Crosswind Farm in Keene) resigned from the Morrow Park market at an annual general meeting in April.
While they were the vicepresident and president respectively of the Morrow Park market, controversy ensued over vendors selling produce grown far from Peterborough but not necessarily identified as such.
The new board of the Morrow market is made up of Jessica Arsenault of Hard Winter Bread Co., Brenda Steed of Sugar Valley Farm and Maple Products in Otonabee-South Monaghan Township and Meredith Bruni of C. Bruni and Sons (a vegetable farm in Oshawa).
The new Farmcrest Marketplace at the Trentwinds will operate on Saturdays from 8 a.m. to 1 p.m.