Future of 'struggling' Stouffville Farmers' Market on council's plate
Location, hours, operation on Tuesday night agenda
Yorkregion.com
Nov. 16, 2015
By Sandra Bolan
What to do with the Downtown Stouffville Farmers’ Market.
Everything - from its location, to day and hours of operation, to how it is governed - is up for discussion during Tuesday night’s council meeting.
Shutting down the seven-year-old market is also on the table.
This past season had about five full-season vendors and another nine seasonal/part-time, according to the staff report. Roughly 150 people a week visited the market, which operated on Thursdays from 2 to 7 p.m. in the parking lot of 6240 Main St. from May to October.
In 2014, the market moved within downtown Stouffville from Park Drive to Main Street, which provided greater visibility “but the market continues to struggle with maintaining community support,” according to the report.
Recruiting and keeping vendors has also proven to be challenging.
The new location helped increase sales and attendance but “it appears that the market continues to lose ‘farmers’ and offers more non-farm items than produce,” the report stated.
Another issue is where the vendors are getting their food.
In 2011, the rules were changed to allow all Ontario grown/produced products, versus the original mandate of items having to be from within a 100-mile radius.
“Consumers are increasingly becoming more aware that some markets/vendors are re-selling food from the Ontario Food Terminal. This makes the consumer question the difference between farmers’ markets and shopping at the local grocery store, where items are comparable in quality, reduced in cost and has more selection,” according to the report.