Wondering if that food at the farmers’ market or roadside stand is really local?
It’s a perfect opportunity for a good conversation, says Edith Orr, Johnson Farmers’ Market manager.
“You will know when you talk to them,” she said. “Have that conversation. There’s a comfort level in knowing your vendors.”
Orr was at the first market of the 2019 season in Desbarats on Saturday and shared some tips on how to find local produce and let us in on the new products at the market.
“When this market started 12 years ago,” Orr said, gesturing to the wooden structure that is now the permanent home of the market. “People used to tell me we were bringing it in from southern Ontario because everyone knows we can’t do this here,” she said, pointing to some large, very fresh, ripe zucchini at a table near the entrance.
“So, I would say, ‘Do you have a few minutes? We’re going to go for a drive. It will take about half an hour.’ and I’d show them the fields where this came out of, the greenhouses, the plastic row covers. That’s the authenticity.”
Farmers selling products at the market are using techniques to start seeds earlier, get them in the ground when there is still snow on the fields and produce field-ripened vegetables much earlier than customers might think they'd be ready, Orr said.
Locally grown, fully matured and ripened zucchini, cucumbers, radishes, spinach and salad greens were all available at the market on Saturday.
“It’s about celebrating what we have in our immediate community, which we kind of look at as from Echo Bay to Iron Bridge” she said.
Food is not the only thing they sell at the Johnson Farmers' Market.
“We now have birch syrup, hand made axe and hatchet handles as well as natural wood ‘cookies’,” Orr said. “If we don’t have something (locally), we go further.”
Agawa Fishery of Batchawana Bay has a table at the Johnson Farmers’ Market where they sell fresh and smoked fish as well as other products they’ve made with the fish they catch.
A variety of cow and goat cheeses from Thornloe Cheese of Temiskaming Valley (still in northern Ontario) are also available at the market all summer.
“We go to the local market, then northern Ontario and then we source from Ontario,” Orr said. "We haven’t been able to harvest our peaches or cherries up here, yet, so we do have a connection to orchards in southern Ontario so that it comes direct from the orchards to our market. By working together we can bring down the transportation costs so we bring more affordable food to our market."
And vendors at the market add value to the products brought in. Some make pies, preserves and other products to sell at the market.
Paula Collins of Bruce Mines is one of several vendors who make sauces, jams, jellies, chutneys and other preserves with vegetables and fruits that are in season. She also makes washable cloth bags filled with cherry pits that can be warmed and used as pain relief for sore muscles or anything else one would use a heating pad for.
“They smell like cherries when you warm them up,” she said.
Some vendors bring a wide range of skills to the table.
Paul Martin and his family grow vegetables, keep bees, tap maple trees and blacksmith. They make preserves, process honey and make products using honey like a peanut butter and honey spread, creamed honey, lip balm and other beeswax products.
Jacob Martin and his family have a mill and stone grind a variety of grains into flour including wheat, spelt, barley, oats and soy, also in Desbarats.
Greg and Lorna Masters run Masters Fibre Mill & Alpaca Farm on nearby St. Josephs Island where they produce batts, rovings and yarn, hand died and custom milled often from fibre shorn from their own animals.
When the alpacas get too old to throw usable fibre, they have them humanely slaughtered and butchered to sell the meat at the market. They have alpaca pepperettes, sausages, patties and ground meat for sale at the market beside finished products knitted from alpaca fibre and skeins of alpaca yarn.
All the producers at the Johnson Market proudly display their addresses along with their products and many of them offer business cards indicating when products are for sale at their farm gates. It’s easy to see they are local.
Greg and Lorna Masters even offer tours of their farm and mill on Humes Road near Richards Landing.
But sometimes it’s not so easy to tell who has locally-produced goods, Orr said.
“You see these cartons,” she said, pointing to boxes of cucumbers under a table. “A lot of people look at these and say, ‘Okay, that has to have come from the food terminal because you see cartons like that all across Ontario’ but that’s standardized packaging.”
Instead of assuming the products in the cartons came from the terminal, Orr suggests customers ask the vendors. Most vendors will tell the truth and it’s very easy to verify what they are saying with a short drive around the area or some online investigation.
“If you talk to Judith, here (a vendor), she can tell you when it (the cucumber crop) was harvested, where and what was involved in bringing it here to the market.”
The best way to make sure products are authentically local is to come to the market regularly, talk to the vendors and build that rapport, she added.
In addition to several new products this year, the Johnson Farmers’ Market has decided to try out a loyalty program. For the month of June, market customers can spend $300 to get $325 worth of market vouchers that they can spend anytime and at any vendor at the market.
“It’s about rewarding our loyal customers,” Orr said. “The ones that come to the first market and are coming through the season but we’re only running it for the month of June.”
The Johnson Farmers’ Market is held Saturdays from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. in Desbarats.
Desbarats Country Produce, a Mennonite co-operative selling local produce and other products is also located in that area.
From June to Thanksgiving, it’s open Monday to Saturday from 10 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. and closed on Sundays.
Also opening for the first time this season on Saturday was the Algoma Farmers’ Market in the Bondar Pavilion parking lot.
It’s celebrating season number 118 with plenty of fresh, local produce, baked goods, preserves and other locally made products and is open from 8 a.m. to 1 p.m. on Saturdays throughout the summer.
Also in the Sault is the Mill Market, open Saturdays from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. in the winter, 8 a.m. to 2 p.m. in the summer and on Wednesday afternoons in July and August.
This indoor market offers a variety of baked goods, soaps, handmade treasures like turned wooden bowls, jewlery, candles and keepsakes. And, of course, plenty of food including Agawa Fishery, Sayers Fishery, Penokean Hills Farms, and produce from several local farms.
Visitors to the Mill Market can also pay a visit to Entomica, an insectarium where they can learn about a variety of local and exotic insects.
There is also a relatively new farmers’ market operating in Prince Township as well as markets on St. Joseph Island, in Bruce Mines and Iron Bridge all offering local produce and products.