CHICO — It’s Chico tradition on a cool Saturday morning to grab bags and head to the farmers market to socialize, sample both new and old food carts for breakfast and pick up local produce. Has that changed in the midst of a COVID-19 pandemic?
Despite concerns in March about safely holding a farmers market during the shelter in place order, the Chico Certified Farmers Market continues to bring local vendors to customers — with some new adjustments.
Impact on vendors
Besides the fact that vendors are now wearing masks and gloves while at the market, other changes are in place, such as a a six-feet-apart distance policy and the opening of a fourth “lane” for sellers in the parking lot.
Other changes involve packaging products differently.
“All of our juices are served in a disposable plastic cup, or customers can take a recyclable glass bottle with them,” Harthorn’s Organics owner Allan Harthorn said. “We’re not refilling any containers anymore. … We’re trying to limit as much physical contact with the product as possible and spending a lot less time talking to people.”
However, little has changed in processes at the farm, Harthorn said. His farm’s picking crew directly packs produce in boxes to be brought directly to the market.
“There is no processing plant in the middle and everybody wears gloves, but we’ve really always done that,” Harthorn said.
“We try to bag our produce, so a lot of customers will just grab and go,” Yang Family Farms worker Sally Yang said. “We pre-wash everything so it makes it easier for customers with food.”
Although there are chemicals designed for washing vegetables, Yang recommends cold, clean water — “We don’t want anything that goes in our body to be harmful.”
Due to safety concerns, the use of plastic is definitely up in the past month, even for vendors who are usually waste-conscious.
“We’ve had a longstanding habit of trying not to use plastic, as much as possible, but the biggest thing that’s is we have to bag our produce,” Grub Community Supported Agriculture farmhand Eric Chisler said. “So now there are two of us because one of us has to have gloves on and handle money and one of us has to touch the food.”
But, he said it also feels safer as unlike at grocery stores, “there’s not a lot of surfaces to wipe down.”
“The biggest thing that has changed is actually that our CSA sales have skyrocketed,” Chisler said. “We have a lot less to bring to market because of it. We see that a lot in local agriculture where people are choosing to do CSA boxes and get their weekly produce instead of coming to their market.
“It’s been kind of a benefit that people have been looking to the local food systems to get their nutrients instead of looking to the local grocery stores. I’ve seen people at the market that I’ve never seen before.”
But sales are down for the past few weeks.
“Financially we’re down, at 60% of sales overall,” Chisler said. “I think people are buying more in bulk and there’s a large shift towards CSAs.”
However, for other vendors business has been good “because people have been wanting to support local businesses,” The Joker’s Bakery owner John Ralston said. Because his business did not have a storefront before, it has been beneficial to his business to run a booth at the market.
“People are actually here to buy stuff and then they’re out — versus the past when they would come on Saturday because they were ‘having a day at the market’,” he said.
Communication between vendors has also increased.
“We’re all on the same page,” Ralston said, “Even though we originally got backlash on Facebook and social media about still having a farmers market, this is a necessity … the negativity is starting to simmer down about this.”
Aiding food benefits
The market is a vital tool for connecting people to fresh, local produce, particularly as applications for CAL Fresh nearly doubled in the last month, Jennie Dye said. She and other volunteers with Cal Fresh work to exchange people’s Supplemental Nutrition Assistance funds for tokens as part of the Market Match Incentive, and helping people with Cal Fresh applications.
“In 2019 we helped facilitate about $57,000 worth of Cal Fresh and about $30,000 worth of Market Match … that’s 90,000 of assistance money poured right into our farmers market,” Dye said. The statewide increase in funds for Cal Fresh users has helped, she said.
“I think last week (of April 15) we saw a bump, as people are getting used to this type of shopping. They’re less afraid to use this benefit and get their dollars,” Dye said. “You feel a bit safer than being in a closed space grocery store.
“Even when you go to the grocery store there’s a lot of staple items that aren’t there, so it’s a little easier for our local food system to keep up with fruits and vegetables, not having to ship it as far.”