Farmers markets make fresh use of malls

CARBONDALE, Ill. — Whether it’s online, at a distance or in person, their first goal is to keep the food coming.

In addition to the challenges that winter brings for farmers markets, the COVID-19 pandemic added additional burdens. But organizers of local farmers markets stepped up and are meeting those challenges to keep local farms selling and local eaters buying.

AgriNews talked to three farmers markets in the state — the Carbondale Winter Farmers Market, the Champaign-Urbana Winter Farmers Market in Urbana and the Twin City Farmers Market in Sterling — about how they are making markets work with the double burden of winter and the pandemic.

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Before the COVID-19 pandemic, the Carbondale Winter Farmers Market was held at Carbondale High School. This winter, the organizers moved the market to University Mall in Carbondale, Illinois.

Carbondale Winter Farmers Market

When: Saturdays from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. through March.

Where: University Mall, 1237 E. Main St., Carbondale. The market is located in the east wing, near the VIP Movie Theater.

Online: Online market is available at https://app.sourcewhatsgood.com/markets/carbondale-community-farmers-market/products; more information on the market is available at carbondalemarket.com.

“This is something that is very serious and very real, and we are taking it very seriously. We want to provide access to local and healthy food to as many people as we can this winter,” said Libby Ervin, Southern Illinois Farming Alliance coordinator at FoodWorks.

FoodWorks is a nonprofit organization based in Carbondale that works to build and promote a sustainable food economy in southern Illinois.

It was in July 2020 when Ervin and others who help organize the Carbondale Winter Farmers Market knew they would be faced with even more change than they were expecting, in light of the COVID-19 pandemic. Carbondale High School formerly hosted the winter market, but would be unable to do that going forward.

“We had to start looking for a new location and thinking about formats and everything,” Ervin said.

Factors that she hadn’t had to think about before — separating vendor booths, social distancing for shoppers and traffic flow to keep shoppers at a safe distance from each other — came into play along with the usual concerns of parking, transportation and convenience for both vendors and shoppers.

“We were trying to think of spaces that would be able to house the market, to give us enough space to safely have an in-person market. We didn’t come up with a lot of options. We looked at a few different places and just didn’t feel comfortable with them. The Champaign-Urbana market is doing their winter market in a mall space, so we went to the mall and they had some room,” Ervin said.

For Ervin and the vendors, the University Mall in Carbondale ticked all the boxes.

“Looking at the mall, we really wanted a place that has access to public transportation for people who may not drive. Pretty much every form of public transportation drops off at the mall, so people can come right here, and that was a plus for us, as well,” Ervin said.

The Carbondale Winter Farmers Market is a maker-only market, requiring vendors to make or grow what they sell. The market’s vendors offer a variety of foods and even craft items.

“We have a mushroom vendor. We have meat vendors with beef, pork, chicken and lamb. We have cottage food vendors who sell baked goods, jams, syrups and pickled items. We have people who have pet treats and pet nutrition. We have a honey vendor, some craft vendors, some plant vendors,” Ervin said.

For those who want to buy local food in southern Illinois but don’t want to shop in person, the market is offering an online way to order and pick up food.

“To match with the changing times and to be flexible, we added an additional market. We are doing online ordering and payment with curbside pick up for people who don’t want to have any contact. That is a new aspect of the market that we are implementing,” Ervin said.

The online market uses the What’s Good app — https://app.sourcewhatsgood.com/markets/carbondale-community-farmers-market/products.

“People can place an order starting Monday morning at 8 a.m. and until Thursdays at noon. Once they check out, they can select a specific time for their pick up,” Ervin said.

The curbside pickup is at the mall. The list of vendors and available products for both tracks of the market, the in-person and the online market, are updated weekly and available at carbondalemarket.com.

In a time where everything was made difficult, one of the most difficult tasks has been getting everyone who enjoys the market to put the social aspect of it on hold.

“It’s retraining people how to look at the market. It’s always been a social kind of experience in the past. You grab a cup of coffee, you walk around and talk, you hang out, you do some shopping,” Ervin said.

This season, that’s not a practical reality for the market.

“It’s much different this year. We really want people to come in, shop for what they need and then leave. We want to keep it as safe as possible,” Ervin said.

Champaign-Urbana Winter Farmers Market

When: Saturdays from 8 to 11 a.m.

Where: Lincoln Square Mall, 201 Lincoln Square, Urbana. Use the south side entrances.

Online: https://thelandconnection.org/champaign-urbana-winter-farmers-market.

When Cay Diamond, the outreach and market program manager at The Land Connection in Champaign, wasn’t sure how, or if, people would respond to the winter farmers market at Lincoln Square Mall, shoppers quickly showed how much they wanted the market — and the products and vendors.

“The response from the community has been so great. Our vendors have been reporting sales that they’ve never seen because people want to support their local food businesses. It has been difficult, but it has been really great to see the response from the community and everybody coming together and making this happen,” Diamond said.

The Champaign-Urbana Winter Farmers Market opened as another market had to close. The holiday market, normally at the mall, was canceled, leaving the local food vendors who normally sell there in a bind.

“The farmers were really worried because they no longer had an avenue for sales for the winter,” Diamond said.

Diamond, new to the job and the area — she was hired in March — organized the winter farmers market in a few weeks. The market started the first Saturday in November and will continue every Saturday through April.

The market has 15 food vendors and additional vendors who make use of kiosks in the mall.

Even with the market going ahead, Diamond had to find ways to comply with social distancing and other COVID-19 mitigation efforts. Shoppers are required to wear masks, and hand sanitizer is provided at regular stations throughout the market.

Diamond also came up with a single-way traffic flow to make sure that shoppers are able to access all the vendors.

“We’ve created a one-way traffic flow and it horseshoes around so shoppers are able to exit in the same lot they came through,” Diamond said.

While winter might seem like a season of less plenty, the vendors at the market offer a variety of local food.

“We have Triple S Farms, chicken, beef, eggs and pork. We have Hardin Bison Ranch selling bison meat. We have a couple of bakers, one does hot chocolate bombs and cookies and other baked goods. We have mushrooms from Flyaway Farm. We have two big produce vendors. We have Prairie Fruits Creamery, selling goat cheese and dairy products,” Diamond said.

In keeping with the mission of The Land Connection to build and encourage a strong local food system, the Champaign-Urbana market requires vendors to sell products that are grown or sourced locally, defined as within 150 miles of the Champaign-Urbana area.

Like the Carbondale market, one of the biggest adjustments was the temporary hold on the social part of the farmers market.

“That was difficult to get people to understand that this is not a social sort of gathering place anymore, that this is an in and out market and that’s it,” Diamond said.

In the past, the winter market offered programming for children and nutrition education that had to be put on hold. But Diamond put together Kids’ Kits, a distance-learning tool that combines a video showing how ingredients are raised or produced, along with a video of Diamond and her kids making the recipe in the commercial kitchen of a local food co-op. The Land Connection purchased sets of the ingredients and worked with local public health officials to assemble those ingredients into kits.

“Once a month, families could come and pick up the Kids’ Kits, and they could scan the QR code that takes them right to the video. They can do these fun recipes with their family, and it was completely free for them,” Diamond said.

The Kids’ Kits were a hit and just one of the ideas that Diamond said she plans to use from the pandemic experience. There were other lessons learned along the way.

“We are really learning that people appreciate convenience,” Diamond said.

While the Champaign-Urbana market does not offer online ordering or curbside pickup — although individual vendors may offer online order options from their farm websites with pickup at the farms or shipping options — how to make buying local foods more convenient for everyone is something she and others at The Land Connection will be exploring.

“We are thinking about things like how Instacart works and how can we incorporate those things into the market. Maybe some families don’t want to come to the farmers market and hang out as much as other families do, so how can we make our market a place where those people can come, just grab their stuff and go — and then also have an open space for the people who do want to hang out?” Diamond said.

As far as the days ahead and markets to come, Diamond said she hopes for no more major market mayhem.

“It was crazy, but I’m glad I got the crazy year out of my way now so everything will be smooth sailing,” she said.

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The Twin City Farmers Market is a year-round farmer’s market in Sterling, Illinois. Market vendors sell seasonal produce, meat, dairy and prepared foods, as well as arts and crafts. After closing briefly in the spring of 2020 to comply with the Illinois COVID-19 requirements, market officials worked to incorporate mask requirements, social distancing and sanitary measures into the market.

Twin City Farmers Market

When: Saturdays from 8 a.m. to noon, year-round.

Where: 106 Avenue A, Sterling.

Online: http://twincityfarmersmarket.com.

“We’re just doing everything we can to get creative and make it work,” said Sterling Main Street Executive Director Janna Groharing of the Twin City Farmers Market in Sterling.

The year-round market, heading into its 16th year, has made adjustments, including a brief closure in the spring due to Illinois COVID-19 mitigation rules, and has found ways to stay open and keep customers and vendors coming back.

The biggest change is that the market’s kitchen and popular dining area — where shoppers could purchase lunch and sit down to enjoy some of their prepared food purchases on the spot — is temporarily closed.

“We still have the dining room closed due to COVID, so any purchases need to be taken to go. You cannot eat here. We’ve got all the chairs pulled out, so we are not offering any of that,” Groharing said.

That closure has allowed Groharing and vendors to make more space for shoppers.

“By taking the dining room tables and chairs out, we’ve been able to open up some more floor space so we can spread the vendor booths out a little. We were able to move some things over to the dining room to separate the vendors a little more,” Groharing said.

The market offers a variety of vendors who sell indoors on a year-round basis. Poultry, cheese, eggs, beef and pork, including grassfed beef and pork, are offered for sale at the market that is open every Saturday morning.

In addition, vendors offer an array of baked goods and prepared items, from single-serve scones and cupcakes and cinnamon rolls to Mexican food, like burritos, tamales, enchiladas and Chinese food, dumplings, egg rolls and main dishes.

With the newly-built addition of a large covered awning that was finished in time to welcome outdoor vendors in the late spring, business was steady.

“I think we had one of our busiest summer markets ever. By the time we were able to start back up in May and had the outdoor facility, people were ready to have something to do, so we stayed busy all summer long,” Groharing said.

She said business typically slows in the fall and winter, but she hopes that customers continue to shop the market.

“We generally do slow down a little bit in the wintertime. I cautioned our vendors that it’s likely we will have a slower winter than we normally do, with the uptick in cases,” she said.

Groharing said shoppers have adjusted to the new COVID-19 requirements and changes to the market.

“We have had excellent mask compliance. We have not seen any pushback on the request to wear masks by vendors or customers, so it seems to be going pretty smoothly,” she said.

Groharing said she and her assistant, Lori VanOosten, are on site when the market is open, making sure that mitigation measures are in place.

“We are down there sanitizing stuff like door handles, and we have all of the general safety precautions in place,” Groharing said.

While the market itself doesn’t have an online ordering system, Groharing said that many of the vendors have been able to offer some type of online ordering or pre-ordering and pickup or delivery options to customers.

“I know our vendors are thinking outside the box and getting creative, with taking orders in advance and special pickup times or delivery. We’re all doing everything we can to keep our shoppers safe and comfortable,” Groharing said.