Eating local in the time of coronavirus: Leelanau Farmers Markets to open May 23 in Suttons Bay
Social distancing will be enforced at Leelanau Farmers Markets this year.
By Jacob Wheeler
Sun editor
Ginger Bardenhagen, board chair of the Leelanau Farmers Markets Association, has looked forward to celebrate 20 years of Leelanau farmers markets in 2020. She and the board didn’t expect they would have to pivot and completely rethink how farmers and customers will interact and how transactions will take place this spring and summer.
“Markets are really community-based, social entities,” said Bardenhagen. “People love to go there and see their farmers and chat with them. They love to have their coffee and eat their croissants while they buy their peas. It’s going to be a challenge this year to dissuade people from congregating, and convincing them to just buy their produce and leave.”
This year’s farmers markets will not feature music or entertainment. Three of the five markets (Suttons Bay, Northport and Glen Arbor) will offer online ordering on the Leelanau Farmers Markets website and curbside pickup for two hours in the morning of the market (the official time has not yet been set). The online markets will also include artisan products that are not permitted to be sold at the physical market under Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer’s current COVID-19 executive order. All five markets will feature face-to-face ordering, with vendor booths spaced further apart, sidewalk chalk indicating where customers may stand, masks strongly suggested, and hand sanitizer available everywhere.
“We wanted to do online drive-up to make things safer, more comfortable for people,” said Bardenhagen.
The Farmers Markets Association board agreed during a marathon, 3-hour virtual meeting Monday night that Leelanau farmers market will begin with the Suttons Bay market on May 23—the Saturday of Memorial Day weekend. (If road construction on M-22 isn’t complete by May 23, the Suttons Bay market might move to the Suttons Bay high school parking lot.) Northport will open its market on Friday, June 5; Empire starts on Saturday, June 13; Glen Arbor opens on Tuesday, June 16, and Leland launches on Thursday, June 18. Markets run from 9 a.m. until 1 p.m.
“I’m super excited about the Suttons Bay market, in particular,” said Bardenhagen. “Those of us who have day jobs during the week can go online, choose our produce, and pick it up on Saturdays. Whereas people who are seasonals or tourists could hit any of the markets any day of the week.”
The Association will use a donation page on its website to raise money to cover extra costs that come with additions such as portajohns, sanitizer and hand washing stations, signage, paper bags, masks and gloves. “Market masters” who typically help the vendors set up in their 10-foot x 10-foot, U-shaped booths will now also rope off the farmers markets to make them accessible only from one entrance and hang rope or tape between vendor booths, which will be spaced an additional 3 feet apart this year.
Since farmers markets currently fall under the same state-mandated regulations as indoor grocery stores, additional staff will be hired to help market masters limit the number of people permitted inside the market at any given time.
Despite the hurdles posed by the coronavirus pandemic, Bardenhagen expects 2020 to be a healthy year for Leelanau farmers markets. Northern Michigan’s local food and farm-to-table culture has exploded during the past 20 years. Traverse City’s virtual Sara Hardy Farmers Market garnered nearly 400 shoppers placing $16,000 in online orders during the market’s first three days, reported the Traverse Ticker.
Above all, the Leelanau Farmers Market Association is taking steps to ensure that this year’s farmers market experience is safe, healthy and enjoyable.
“We want people who have a compromised immune system to feel safe and comfortable coming to the markets,” said Bardenhagen.
This story was sponsored by MI Market in Suttons Bay.
