What Went Wrong at Farmers Market? Duh!

Investors in Elkhart, Indiana, spent $4 million on a gorgeous, 51,000-square-foot pavilion, built by Amish craftsman, and called it the American Countryside Farmers Market. It opened in 2007 to great fanfare and great expectations, but closed this year. “What Went Wrong?” wondered the headline on a column about the market’s demise in the South Bend Tribune.

 

The soft economy certainly had something to do with the lack of customer traffic at the emporium, which featured an array of foodstuffs, artsy doo-dads and assorted bric-a-brac, presumably with some sort of countryish flavor. But there was another problem with the place that called itself a farmers market, noted the columnist, Heidi Prescott. Apparently, it had few if any actual farmers, notwithstanding the paeans on the venture’s Web site to the “tradition of small and medium-sized family farms” in the region, and the promise that “various vendors” at the farmers market would “provide the freshest possible connection between the producer and the consumer.”

 

Critics of the retail outlet complained that the “the offerings [were] too commercialized, and the selection of locally grown fruits and vegetables too sparse,” Prescott wrote, quoting Scott Banacka to that effect. “Never liked it from the get-go,” he said. “It needed more true farmers selling their produce.”