We really respect our customers, especially those from the Greenwood area and downtown Indy. Without those two markets, we wouldn’t have gotten our start on the direct retail side of this farming venture and we are so very thankful for our time spent in those two markets. But I also feel that if you are taking the time to read this, then you deserve to know the “why” behind the decisions. Anyone who knows me at all knows I’m a black and white kinda guy, so here it is…..
We’ll cover the easy one first: City Market was a pure business decision. I love downtown. I worked professionally in the engineering industry from 1997-2011, every day of it in downtown Indy. And I love, love, love the summer market outside of City Market. I love the brick street, I adore the tall buildings and there is a very cool atmosphere at City Market that isn’t easily explained, nor duplicated. However, City Market was our worst market financially speaking and the leadership there saw fit to raise the vendor fees 50% this year. No explanation was provided, and it just didn’t sit well with us. We also had this idea in the back of our minds about doing a free home and office delivery route, and decided the time required to do the City Market (7.5 hours each week) would be better invested in trying this new idea out.
Now the hard one: Greenwood was our home for nearly 9 years. From 1996-2004, we lived and breathed all that is Greenwood. Our home was there, our church was there and many of our closest friends are still there. While we don’t miss the traffic, we still consider it our second home and miss so much about it. Our first full time farmers market was in fact the Greenwood Farmers Market, all the way back in 2008! Many of our best customers today are some of the same folks we met back in 2008 at the GFM.
Our issue really arose last year due to the growth and popularity of the market. Greenwood is the only market we attend where the full season vendors are not assigned a permanent spot to set up in each week. This may not sound like a big deal, but when customers can’t find you each week, it’s a big deal. Lots of our customers couldn’t find us or missed us each week due to this reason.
Really, in our opinion the market has outgrown its current location and needs a larger site with more parking. This is a result of it being a good market with good leadership. But, we were told by the leadership that there is no place else to move the market to in Greenwood. That seemed odd to me, but being an engineer I simply began to problem solve using the current location. I asked some questions and made some suggestions about how we might tweak a few things and assign permanent spots for full season vendors. Again, I was told that this wouldn’t work and there was nothing that could be done. I respect the decision of the leadership there, but these issues were wrecking havoc with customers not finding us.
The proverbial straw came when we were told late last year that we would not be allowed to sell our 100% grassfed beef at this market. This was a big blow to us. Being the longest standing meat vendor at Greenwood, with a product our customers were clambering for in hand, we were not allowed to sell it. A new vendor was selling beef at the market, so we were told “no”. What was most disturbing to us was that this beef was corn fed, making it in our opinion a totally different product. Again, we respect the decisions of the leadership at the market. We were to say the least very disappointed, but it wasn’t our decision to make and we honored the boundaries given to us.
Over the years, we have passed on a lot of larger markets who have recruited us in order to stick with Greenwood, our second home. In the end however there were too many obstacles for us to overcome. It sincerely saddens us to no longer be participating at the GFM but we didn’t really feel like we had much choice. We are hopeful that someday we will be able to return to this market with all of our products. We wish the leadership and vendors at the GFM well and hope that they are successful. They are great people who work hard to orchestrate a good farmers market, and we don’t hold any ill feelings towards them.
In the meantime, we are going to take this opportunity to roll out our free delivery program for those on the Southside and in downtown Indy. We believe that, at least for the time being, this is the best way we can serve you our loyal customers.
