The farmers market movement doesn”™t need to fear being made obsolete by e-commerce and online shopping, according to the organizers of Westchester County”™s largest farmers market.
The Pleasantville Farmers Market, which opened for its 17th season May 24, has been run the last two years by nonprofit Foodchester Inc. Peter Rogovin, Foodchester”™s president, said what makes e-commerce appealing is cutting out the “mundane, pain-in-the-butt” experiences in life like waiting in lines.
“A lot of online shopping is to remove the friction of the shopping experience,” Rogovin said. “You never hear people say it”™s a pain to shop their farmers market. ”¦ It”™s not a drag, it”™s not a hassle, it”™s really fun, it”™s engaging.”
The Pleasantville market this month will become the first market in the county to offer online shopping and home delivery. What makes the Pleasantville market appealing, Rogovin said, is not only its locally produced offerings but live music, interaction with farmers, foods prepared by local chefs and events for children.
Rogovin believes most online shoppers will be market regulars who can”™t physically visit the market on a particular day. The market is Saturdays from 8:30 a.m. to 1 p.m. and family or other commitments may force someone to miss a week here and there. A shopper may utilize the online marketplace one week, then return in person the next, he said.
“We don”™t have any indication to suggest to us that people don”™t enjoy going to the market and would prefer to shop at home and online,” he said. Pleasantville has 55 vendors this season and Foodchester estimates that on its opening day it drew 3,500 attendees ”“ the biggest day for the market in history.
Foodchester reached an agreement with Stamford-based Fresh Nation L.L.C., freshnation.com, an online marketplace for farmers markets that already takes orders and delivers for markets in Connecticut, New York and California. Fresh Nation works with markets rather than cuts them out of the process, as several high-profile farm-to-table online delivery services do.
The company was founded by Antony Lee, who worked in e-commerce and the technology industry before opening a farmers market at the Danbury Mall in 2011. He said he looked at farmers markets”™ products as the best available to consumers, but also the most difficult to buy.
“It really wasn”™t the case that we were cannibalizing the farmers market, we were expanding their customer base,” Lee said. As many as 90 percent of buyers on his platform are not regular market-goers, he said.
The site acts as a storefront for vendors at a specific market, giving as much information about a particular farm or product as possible in an effort to replicate the market experience of being able to speak to a seller directly.
Shoppers within a distance from the market can make orders any day of the week, with the cutoff time for a delivery that week being noon the day before the physical market. Products are priced the same as at the market and buyers are charged a $5.99 delivery fee.
The company has no infrastructure or warehouses, nor does it have tractor-trailers hauling large stocks of produce, Lee said. Instead, the company notifies vendors to bring extra food and sends personal food shoppers to the physical farmers market with grocery lists. The personal food shoppers are specially trained and they are chefs, culinary school students and caterers, he said.
“We like to say we”™re pickier than you are,” Lee said. “In our case, they pick the best fruit because they”™re trained to.” The personal shoppers then load up their cars and drive an order right to the front door directly from the market. If no one is home, they can leave the order in a cooler.
There are more than 8,100 farmers markets in the country, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture. That number has grown from less than 2,000 in 1994, according to the department”™s data. Lee said his company has mapped out locations of markets and finds that many potential shoppers live within 10 to 15 miles of a farmers market. Currently Fresh Nation has deals with roughly 30 markets and Lee expects more will follow.
Of Pleasantville”™s vendors, two-thirds have already chosen to participate and offer products through Fresh Nation. Rogovin said that the advent of online banking and shopping, if anything, has given people more time to visit the Pleasantville market.
“People want to make the most of their time, they take the things that are experientially interesting and that”™s what they want to spend more time doing,” he said.
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