Whitefish Farmers Market puts extra focus on local products

Visiting the Whitefish Farmers Market provides the opportunity to pick up locally farmed vegetables and locally made products. 

Market organizers Jen Saucier and Rhonda Fitzgerald said the abundance of offerings the farmers present every Tuesday evening at Depot Park is exciting. 

“Instead of getting groceries that were shipped in from thousands of miles away, most everything [at the market] is coming from within the county,” said Saucier, formerly Jen Frandsen. 

Farmers grow a wide range of produce despite the region’s short growing season. About 32 farmers bring an array of produce to the market each week.

"The variety of things they can grow,” Fitzgerald remarked. “Every year they experiment with a few things and when they see it sold, they can expand on that. So, you're getting amazing things.” 

Last week, shoppers could buy fresh asparagus, Chinese radishes from White Star Organics, potatoes from Snow Country Gardens and a myriad of other vegetables. Sun Hands Farm offers 10 to 12 varieties of mushrooms. 

Local producers bring beef, pork, lamb and chicken. A few vendors sell eggs and a dozen others sell jams, jellies and baked goods. 

“With the food shortages the people have seen over the last five years, the hiccups in our food processing system, food delivery system, people are realizing how important it is to buy local again and appreciate that,” said Saucier. “You can’t walk an extra block to support something that’s growing down the road, versus across the country? Support local. Buy local.” 

The market staff believes so strongly in supporting local farmers, they instituted a new guideline this year - all the food trucks and prepared food vendors are required to utilize at least one local ingredient in offerings each week.  

“We’re trying to teach people not to buy from Costco or Sysco ... buy local food,” Saucier said. “There is so much of this food being grown and sold over there on Central Avenue and you turn around and go to the other side of the park and they’re buying from thousands of miles away. 

“Why not make those connections and start requiring the trucks to use local and when the trucks use local, then they start spreading throughout the valley and having that same local ingredient on the truck all the time ... and then it starts to catch on and your consumers want local,” she said. 

Five years ago, organizers initiated one of the biggest changes to the market by making it a zero-waste event. Everything meant to be consumed at the market is compostable, including the containers, plates and utensils. All those materials, plus food scraps, are composted by Dirt Rich Compost in Columbia Falls. 

“The only thing that isn’t compostable are aluminum cans, and we recycle those,” Fitzgerald said. 

The market also grows and changes when the original farmers retire or move on to other opportunities, and new farms join. 

Fitzgerald said small farms often begin selling at the market from a single table and, over the years, grow until they operate out of a 20-foot-long space, full of produce. She often feels the market is like an incubator for businesses. 

“Like Wicked Good, they started with a cart that they pulled with their bicycles,” she said, recalling the early days of one farm. “They were a full-on booth, then they were a double, and now, they’re in with Two Bear at The Farmer’s Stand, and [they] do big wholesale business to the chefs in town. Awesome.” 

When The Wicked Good Farm stopped attending the market, they made space for other small farms to take a place on Central and a share of the market. 

“The farmers are the core. It's a farmers' market,” Fitzgerald said. “The other things are to make it an event and make it fun.” 

Twenty-seven artists and makers feature their wares at the market, and local musicians, sponsored by local businesses, provide live music each week. The market runs from June through September.

“Locals are bringing their families to the market because it's a great place to be and so it happens to get busy,” Saucier said. “It’s not a bad thing. It's a good thing for downtown.”