Farmers markets test how much growth is too much

GROWING TREND: Linda Kushner, left, mother of Arcadian Fields Farm owner and Hope Street Farmers Market President Diana Kushner, sells produce. / COURTESY HOPE STREET FARMERS MARKET
GROWING TREND: Linda Kushner, left, mother of Arcadian Fields Farm owner and Hope Street Farmers Market President Diana Kushner, sells produce. / COURTESY HOPE STREET FARMERS MARKET

Farmers markets grew through the recession like few other retail segments in New England.
In Rhode Island, for example, the handful of markets running in 2005 grew to 50 last year, making them a significant, if still small, part of the regional food-distribution system.
Is there more room to keep growing at this pace?
That question is being tested this summer with the launch of a new market on the East Side of Providence that will, for the first time, run head-to-head in the same neighborhood during the same day and time as an established market.
Organized by a Providence resident who volunteers at the Northwest Farmers Market in Glocester, the new Providence Alternative Farmers Market opens next month and intends to build on the success of the thriving Hope Street Farmers Market in Lippett Park.
“We were hearing from a number of venders that they couldn’t get into Lippett Park,” said Richard Suls, founder of the Providence Alternative Farmers Market. “As a longtime customer at Lippett Park, I realized it had reached an equilibrium and had as many venders and customers as the space and parking spots could handle.”
As evidence of demand for another East Side venue, Suls said he has already found takers for half of the 30 vendor spots planned for the Alternative Market, which will be located in the North Main Street parking lot owned by The Miriam Hospital that was once home to the Rhode Island Auditorium.
As retail operations go, farmers markets prioritize community over competition. Suls said his plan is to draw new customers who wouldn’t ordinarily shop at markets instead of taking any away from Hope Street.
Since farmers markets started proliferating in Rhode Island about a decade ago, organizers have gone out of their way to avoid direct competition and stealing each other’s customers.
But some overlap is inevitable given the physical proximity of the two markets and the fact that both will run on Saturday mornings, with the Alternative Market starting and ending one hour later (10 a.m. to 2 p.m.) than Hope Street. As with many retail newcomers, the Alternative Market intends to be less expensive than the incumbent, charging farmers $400 per year, per tent, while Hope Street charges $600 per tent.
Helping them do that is the fact that Miriam Hospital is allowing use of their parking lot for free, while the city charges Hope Street use of Lippitt Park.
Being located in a parking lot will also allow the Alternative Market to offer 80 off-street parking spaces, while Hope Street customers who drive have to navigate on-street parking. The lot will also provide spaces for food trucks.
Suls said he briefly considered trying to open a weekend market in Dexter Park to complement the Thursday-evening Armory market, but he decided demand there was still lower than on the East Side.
While Hope Street Market leaders acknowledge that they’ve had to turn away farmers interested in opening a new stand at Lippett Park, they don’t agree that their market has maxed out and can’t keep growing.
“It was very nice not to have competition on the same day, but now we do and we will have to do our best and keep our customers,” said Diana Kushner, owner of Arcadian Fields Farm in Hopkinton and president of the Hope Street Farmers Market. “It might come to pass that the community can support new markets, but I sincerely hope that our venders do as well or better this year and next so their businesses can flourish. It’s not a situation where there is more demand than we can handle – most weeks I bring leftovers home.”
The Hope Street Market, which has more than 40 venders, accepts five new stands every year, but this year has put a moratorium on new vegetable stands to avoid over-saturation.
This summer, the big additions at Lippett Park will be in prepared foods and the arrival of a locally run arts-and-crafts market adjacent to the food area. Kushner said sometimes the perception that there is no space available at Lippett Park, carried over from the days when the market was located in the Hope High School driveway, is greater than reality.
The market has at least doubled in size from that time and now employs a full-time manager.
Still Kushner said the cooperative only makes enough to meet its current expenses and is considering a campaign for donations this year to supplement what each vendor pays.
Firm estimates of how much shoppers spend at farmers markets in Rhode Island are hard to come by because they involve so many different independent businesses, in addition to the separate groups that operate each market.
The largest farmers market nonprofit in Rhode Island is Farm Fresh Rhode Island, which runs or provides assistance at 12 markets, including the Wintertime Farmers Market in Pawtucket, five summer markets in Providence, two on Aquidneck Island and one each in West Warwick and Woonsocket.
The best measure Farm Fresh Rhode Island has on how much is spent in the Ocean State at markets each year comes from federal food-assistance receipts, which only began in 2007 and have been accepted at more and more markets each year.
From $549 in sales through the federal Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (formerly food stamps) in 2007, when only two markets accepted them, that total grew to $73,818 in 2012, when they were accepted at 19 markets.
Sarah Lester, market coordinator for Farm Fresh Rhode Island, said growth in farmers markets across the state has been steady and carefully planned over the last decade, with organizers very careful not to cannibalize each other.
“We have seen steady growth but it hasn’t been extreme, which is important because you need balance,” Lester said. “If you open too many you will either have not enough farmers or not enough shoppers per market.” •

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