PFM Making News

For most people, the Farmers Market is the place where you can get quality, seasonal foods produced by talented local and regional growers, ranchers, farmers, fishers and food artisans. At Market HQ, we need to look at ourselves through different lenses. We are constantly assessing our place in the agricultural community and are continually looking to promote the small businesses who participate in our Markets and the local food economy. We aren’t always able to measure our goals with concrete metrics and numbers but recently we saw two pieces of good news:

First up, this Eater.com article mapping Market to Bricks & Mortar businesses that got an earlier start with PFM.

But the best [vendors] in the lot — often earning prestige through honest-to-goodness word of mouth — have made the jump to full-on food establishments, giving their groupies seven-day-a-week satiation. Since this is a familiar trajectory in Portland’s food universe, we’ve rounded up a guide to some of the standout market-to-mortar examples, which span a vast spectrum that any trip to the farmer’s market puts into stark relief.

You can read the whole article, and use the map like it’s for Pirate booty here.

Next, was from the Farmers Market Coalition’s newsletter (Reprinted with permission below). PFM in general and Jaret Foster in particular helping wrangle new members to FMC, an organization dedicated to keeping families on the farm and healthy food options for consumers. Love their work., thanks for the mention.

I wanted to take a moment to thank each one of you for your commitment to FMC. Our work together makes a difference in the lives of so many and it is my great honor to be a part of such an incredible community of effective and dedicated individuals. On June 6th FMC turned 6 years old and the date marked the completion of our six week annual campaign. Many of you personally contributed financially to the campaign and for that I am very grateful and thank you as well. 

Earlier in the year, the Fundraising & Development Committee set a goal of $20,000 to raise during our campaign. Unfortunately we fell short at $14,429 so we have a gap to fill.  I speak for the Development and Fundraising committee when I say that it is our commitment to rally the farmers market community, as well as develop resources through other channels to help support FMC; your input, ideas and support are always appreciated.

All told, FMC received 121 pledges of support in membership and donations over the course of the annual campaign. Each of these individuals and organizations took the time to stand up with us and therefore made our coalition that much stronger. A public thank you and listing is available here.

An exciting part of our campaign was the Farmer Ambassador Program, and I am very happy to announce that the Portland Farmers Market in Oregon has recruited the most farmers and vendors as new FMC members!  Congratulations, PFM!  Portland Farmers Market will be able to send one representative to the Public Markets Conference registration free!  Portland achieved this because they spread the good word about FMC and they ASKED their farmers and vendors to join.  I hope that you will follow in their path so that as a community we can make FMC grow stronger!

Thanks again for your contribution to our spring appeal. I hope that your market grows and thrives this season.

Sincerely, 
Bernadine Prince
President
Farmers Market Coalition