The founders of a new winter “farmers market” in Springfield, Mass., clearly know what buzz words will lure the sort of audience they are targeting with their venture. Why buy food shipped from California when you can buy local produce fresh off local farms from us, they told a reporter for The Republican, the daily paper in Springfield, who visited the market one day in December. During the reporter's tour of the market, a shopper dutifully piped in that she “wouldn't mind even paying slightly more for the local products.”
But just how “local” is the produce that will be sold at this “cold weather farmers market”? Well into the story, the founders, Blake Geryk and David F. Jackson, concede that the market is only "as local as possible." The produce they sell is also not necessarily straight from the farm. They have turned themselves into middlemen for farmers from near and, apparently also, from far away, though not quite so far away as California. As they explain their business model in the article in The Republican:
"We were asked by a group of food (cooperatives) to work as a distributor for them and decided to establish a farm-based distribution center that helps farmers to handle produce," said Jackson. "We're working with local farmers as well as with growers in the Carolinas, (and are) looking at Georgia," he said.
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