The Moscow Food Co-op Tuesday Growers Market brings together local growers and producers in a 50-mile radius of Moscow. While putting a focus on local goods and sustainable growing practices, the market also gives customers an opportunity to connect with producers face-to-face.
Co-op Volunteer Growers Market Coordinator Britt Heisel has worked with the Co-op for many years. She first became involved as an in-store volunteer, and has been coordinating the Tuesday Growers Market for five years through the Co-op’s Participating Member Program.
As the market coordinator, Heisel finds vendors, creates the guidelines for the market and organizes walk-on vendors.
“I communicate with producers and also organize the market,” Heisel said. “We recently changed the layout of the market this year, and it’s been a big improvement for vendors and customers.”
Some vendors at the market pay a yearly fee to set up shop in the Co-op’s parking lot every Tuesday, but there is also a stall reserved for walk-on vendors that don’t have the market-season-long booth reservation.
In January 2012, Co-op staff, board members, volunteers and market vendors gathered at a public meeting held in the deli area of the Co-op to discuss the future of the Tuesday Growers Market after the former managers of the Co-op announced the market would not take place that year.
Since then, Heisel said the Co-op has undergone a change in management and the Tuesday Growers Market was officially reinstated, without missing a market season.
“I was a real advocate for the Co-op keeping the market,” she said. “I think it’s a really great match for the Co-op — it’s a community-builder, it supports growers and a lot of the growers have their products in the store. It’s just a natural fit.”
Heisel said the community was strong enough to come together, rally for the good of the market and overturn the management’s decision to nix the Tuesday Growers Market.
“Since I’ve been coordinating the market, we haven’t had a bad turnover of vendors — we’ve had a really strong and consistent group of producers,” she said. “We have everything that’s in the Saturday Farmers Market, but we’re hitting a different crowd.”
Instead of early-risers on Saturday mornings, Heisel said many customers stop by the Tuesday Growers Market on their way home from work.
“I still run into people who say that they’ve never heard of the Tuesday Market, even though this is its 10th year,” Heisel said. “There’s always a challenge in how you reach people and how you get it out there.”
Following the change in management, the Tuesday Growers Market has changed in multiple ways. As a new addition to the market on the first Tuesday of the month, the Co-op hosts a grill out with house-made bratwurst and veggie dogs in the parking lot of the store.
Also, the Co-op will move its weekly Tuesday night live music outside into the parking lot alongside the market
“The vendors here say they love the Saturday (Farmers) Market and the volume of customers,” Heisel said. “But many vendors feel like they can get to know their customers better and talk about what they’re growing and who they are — they feel like it’s a bit of outreach, too.”
Hillary Talbott-Williams, flower vendor from Cottonwood Creek Flowers in Culdesac, Idaho, said this is her first season selling at the Tuesday Growers Market, but her family has sold flowers in the Saturday Farmers Market for the past 14 years.
The Co-op’s Tuesday Market is at a perfect time in the week to best utilize some crops of the flowers they grow, Talbott-Williams said.
“There are always a few flowers that are perfect right in the middle of the week, but wouldn’t really make it — they’d be okay, but not at their prime — for the Saturday Market,” she said.
Dave and Debi Smith of RavenCroft Farm in Moscow bring along fresh vegetables, berries and herbs to the Tuesday Growers Market and the Wednesday Farmers Market in Pullman. Debi said this is their eighth year selling produce at the Tuesday Co-op markets, and have supplied the store with goods in the past.
“It’s friendly, pretty quiet and very relaxed,” she said. “It’s a great atmosphere.”
After setting up shop in the Tuesday market for eight years, she said they have experienced many return customers and love getting to know the customers on a deeper level than at larger and more-crowded markets.
The Tuesday Growers Market will run until October 8. The Co-op is located at 121 E Fifth St., in Moscow.
“I love all these vendors,” Heisel said. “They’re just amazing, hardworking, cool people. I just love being here at the market.”
Chloe Rambo can be reached at [email protected]