The All New Sappington Farmers’ Market
Jan 15, 2008 farmers' markets, farming, groceries, sustainable agriculture
Several of us were talking about the Sappington Farmers’ Market at the Slow Food meeting last Wednesday. Specifically, we had heard they were making a move to go more local, but none of us could recall where we’d seen the information in the first place.Today Kimberly Henricks forwarded us this article from The Healthy Planet and I thought some of you might be interested.
In short:
Missouri Farmers Union and Family Farm Opportunity Center are bringing their special talents to St. Louis. Beginning in December 2007, this 1200-member farmer organization will partner with Tessa Greenspan, making Sappington Farmers Market at 8400 Watson Road the first farmer-owned farmers’ market/grocery store in St. Louis.
You can read the rest of the article here.
Also, the market has cranked out an updated website as well. In their own words they’ve “partnered with “Farm to Family Naturally, LLC”, a Missouri Cooperative effort, to bring the Highest Quality, Local, Affordable, Sustainable, Organic & Natural Foods straight from the Farm to your Table.”
And they boast the following:
The Highest Quality, Local Certified Organic and Natural Fruit and Produce
- Over 200 kinds of cheese
- Hand-cut, Missouri Rancher’s All Natural Meats
- Fresh Baked Breads from local bakeries (ASW & Marconi)
Top quality groceries and frozen items
- Missouri wines and imported vintages
- Dried fruit, nuts and baking products
- Missouri grown seasonings and condiments
- Fruit and Custom Gift Baskets & Gift Certificates available
It all sounds pretty great and although, for obvious reasons, they probably don’t have much mid-January, if anyone has checked it out, let us know how it is.
I do have one question though: Does Missouri produce 200 cheeses regionally? (legally saleable cheeses)
Also, as an aside, they wrote “Farmer’s Market” instead of “Farmers’ Market” all over both sites. I know I make my share of gramatical errors around stlbites, but I’m not running a for profit business. It’s a definite pet peeve and unless Mr. Farmer owns the market, or literally one farmer owns it, the apostrophe goes on the end.
Carry on.
Tags: Sapington-Farmers-Market
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January 15th, 2008 at 4:14 pm
I was curious about the meat. Is “Missouri Rancher’s” a group of different ranchers that will be selling their meat or is it one big ranch? Does that question make sense? And regarding the cheese, I would be curious to see what they consider ‘cheese’. I’m pretty sure my local mom and pop corner store carry 200 types of product they consider cheese. MO does produce 200 types of cheese…Hautly Cheese for instance is counted among the artisan’s cheeses Missouri produces. It’s not the style of cheese that they are counting (raw milk, sheep, cow, goat, etc)…it’s the different types of packaging. For instance you have cheddar, shredded cheddar, mexican blend, pizza blend…get my drift.
January 15th, 2008 at 4:43 pm
Hopefully that’s old info then, because if they were offering Hautly, I think that would be missing the point.
I mean sure, I can get genetically modified Missouri corn, but just because it’s local doesn’t mean I want to eat it.
January 15th, 2008 at 5:18 pm
Could you have heard about Sappington going local in the Sauce Scoop?! I’m just sayin’…
January 16th, 2008 at 3:27 pm
I’ll be interested to see how this goes. Their store before would be put to shame by most grocery stores in the hoodiest parts of St. Louis’ inner-city.
January 16th, 2008 at 4:44 pm
Well, from the looks of the photos on their website, my assumption about the cheese was correct. I saw a lot of what looks like mass packaged cheeses! Again, another reason why my husband should open a store.
January 24th, 2008 at 9:38 am
I believe “Missouri Rancher’s” is a group of farmers who have formed a cooperative to sell their beef. They have certain quality standards that farmers/ranchers must meet in order to maintain membership in the cooperative.