Dissident food vendors make a fresh start
Farmer’s market enjoys busy first winter

By Wes Lafortune

  Business Edge 2005 
 
 
 

Following a bitter dispute over rent at Calgary’s Blackfoot Farmers’ Market in 2003, several vendors say they have made a fresh start at a new year-round location.

The not-for-profit ABC Farmers’ Market Society (names for the Alberta and British Columbia Farmers who make up the society) is halfway through its first winter season at the new Calgary Farmers’ Market.

The market is located in an old airplane hanger at the former Currie Barracks in southwest Calgary, land now owned by Canada Lands Co. Ltd.

More than 60 vendors, selling everything from ethic specialties to local produce, have signed a five-year lease with the society to occupy one or more of the 107 stalls. With 45,000 sq. ft. of space, including kitchens and coolers, the market has attracted more than 20 sellers who once worked from the Blackfoot Farmers’ Market in southeast Calgary.

Ron Hamilton, owner of Sunworks Farm near Armena, is one of the merchants who chose to switch rather than fight.

“We’re probably doing two to three times as much business (now),” says Hamilton, who sells fresh chickens and other certified organic fowl from his family farm, located east of Edmonton in the County of Camrose.

“The customers are buying more. They know we’re there year-round.”

Hamilton says that although he actually pays a higher rent at the Calgary Farmers’ Market compared with the Blackfoot Market, it’s worth it because of the volume of sales.

“A lot of people in Calgary don’t know it’s there yet,” he says. “It’s going to become a tourist destination. It’s a good market that’s going to be a great market.”

Market general manager Anne Lambert agrees, estimating more than 10,000 customers visit each Friday to Sunday during the winter months and “more than 30,000” during each week of the summer.

Next door to the Sunworks Farms stall, Matt Paulson — another former Blackfoot vendor — and business partner Rob Horricks sell their organic goods under the banner of Blush Lane Organic Produce.
     
“With the high volume of sales we can be competitive with the grocery stores,” says Horricks. “The market is the largest location for organic produce and meat in the city.”

Irena Rudzinska and her son Paul say they’re also doing well after moving their Irena’s Brand Products label-which includes preservatives-free borscht and canned cabbage rolls — to the new site. “We had somebody selling our product there (Blackfoot Farmers’ Market) on commission,” says Paul. “It was slow there. We sell way more at the new market.”

The Blackfoot Farmers’ Market, located at 5611 11 St. S.E., continues to operate and will reopen in the spring of 2005 with new structures being built to replace the booths once occupied by the former group of disgruntled vendors.

“We’ll open as we always have,” says Charley Gow, who has owned the Blackfoot Farmers’ Market since 1976.

Gow, 68 says the dispute stems back to his decision in 2003 to retire and have the vendors run the market. “They wanted their rates, not what was comfortable,” says Gow. “They had me over a barrel.”

Gow admits the departure of about 25 vendors had a negative impact on his business, but says his market maintained a core of 10 vendors who have continued on. “We’ve had a lot of interest from new vendors,” he adds.

A more placid situation exists in Edmonton, where the popular Old Strathcona Farmers’ Market (located in the historic Edmonton neighbourhood of Old Strathcona on the city’s south side) has operated for the past 22 years.

Inhabiting a former Edmonton Transit bus garage, the not-for-profit farmers’ market is run by its constituent members. It bustles with activity on Saturdays with more than 10,000 customers, many of them regulars, swarming through the sprawling building eager to stock up on fresh food now available year-round.

“We say: ‘You have to bake it, make it or grow it if it’s for sale at the market,’ ” says Jim O’Neill, manager of the market.