Strategy would make Kitchener Market a hub for food culture, businesses
KITCHENER — A new strategic plan for the Kitchener Market envisions making the market a hub for the local fresh food scene and a launch pad for local food startups.
Under the plan, the market could offer such things as courses in flower arranging or produce canning, stepped-up rentals of the market and its commercial kitchen for events like bridal showers, and valet service that would take people’s market purchases to their cars.
“I think there are some very exciting opportunities here,” said market manager Kim Feere.
The advent of light rail transit, and a stop very close to the market, is “a game-changer,” Feere said. “We’ll have a far greater reach to potential customers.”
The strategy touches upon several issues that are perennial ones the market grapples with, including expanding the Saturday market to other days of the week or extending market hours into the evening, helping customers access available downtown parking, and making the market more visible from King Street.
When the market building opened in 2004, the market operated twice weekly, but the smaller weekday market closed after three years of struggling to attract business.
City staff heard from more than 3,000 people in the year and a half spent preparing the strategy. That feedback confirmed the market’s role as a community hub, a place where people go not only to buy food but to connect with friends and neighbours and where relationships are forged with local vendors, Feere said.
The new strategy includes three main goals:
Supporting local food culture
by evaluating options for more market days or extending hours; offering a broad variety of foods and trying to attract international vendors, and offering courses such as how to can seasonal produce; and offering amenities like market carts and bags, water filling stations and valet service.
Strengthening the market’s role as an “urban” market by offering a variety of programs, such as agricultural scavenger hunts for kids, cooking classes for teens and classes in areas such as food photography or flower arranging; promoting rental of the market space and commercial kitchen market space for things like wedding showers and corporate events; animating the piazza in front of the market with music, dancing, buskers or evening mini-markets; and working with community groups that could use the space for events and link with other happenings in the community.
Serving as a launch pad for the local food industry by promoting the market as a place where entrepreneurs can rent space or test new products.
“From chefs, servers, butchers, farmers and bakers, to food production workers, caterers and food trucks, there are a variety of career opportunities that support economic diversification and inclusive job creation to support all our citizens,” the report says.
Local businesses such as Meal in a Jar and Legacy Greens got their start at the market, Feere notes.
The city has a big investment in the market. The new building opened May 2004, with the city contributing $17.4 million of its $21.7-million cost. Kitchener spent another $100,000 in 2010 to build the community kitchen on the second floor, where it holds cooking classes and other events. It also spends about $250,000 a year to run the market, which has four full-time and several part-time staff.
Pursuing some of the ideas in the strategy would require a bigger investment from the city, Feere warned.
City councillors will discuss the proposed strategy at a planning committee Monday. If approved, the strategy will need to be ratified by council Oct. 24, and will guide the market’s direction over the next four to five years.