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Farmers’ Market vendors gear up for fall and winter

September 11, 2020   ·   0 Comments

It’s an easy question followed by a complicated answer. What’s the next step for vendors at the Alliston B.I.A Farmer’s Market as they prepare for the fall and winter seasons?

The Times spoke with three of the many vendors at the Market to learn how their businesses will adapt.

There was a simple thread throughout all of their plans: they all hope to do well in another uncertain time.

Rebel Crumb Cake Shop is the newest vendor at the Market.

For the past three weeks, their sales have risen exponentially and orders for custom cakes have been the new hot commodity.  

Began by Edward Dillon and his wife Sarah Macey pre-COVID-19, Dillion was a Kitchen Manager at The Keg in Vaughan for 25-years.

The name is derived from Dillion’s favourite movie: Star Wars.

Now, the two have been running this business out of their home and they hope by the early winter, they can find a location in downtown Alliston.

“Best case scenario is we do open a downtown location right when the market season opens,” said Dillion.

“I think, in the month of November, to retrofit a store and then open December, late-November for the Christmas season that would be the best-case scenario.”

With a store, Macey does a lot of custom portraits. She hopes to host art classes and future birthday parties.

While continuing to work out of their home, Mulmur Honey is seeing a rise in a lot of customers travelling to purchase their product. Eve Kurschner explained that the Winter season is usually slow and she isn’t certain on the outcome of sales.  

“Winter months, I think, we have people that order honey from us for stores and [we will] get it all ready for them. But, the Winter for us is usually a quiet time. Glenn, will make more creamed honey, cinnamon honey, ginger honey that sort of thing. We’re just not quite sure what’s going to happen,” Kurschner said.

As of now, families from the city have been driving north to purchase honey and maple syrup from the farm.

This seems to be the prevailing method for purchasing product from Mulmur Honey and it also follows suit for E.F.T. Farms.

Owner Emilio Sica says he is going to continue running his box program this winter for customers while he continues to grow product in the green houses.

“We just started warming them up now. We’re trying to find where the holes are in the green houses and patching them up. We’ll still be doing tomatoes and our beans and stuff,” Spina explained.

Spina also said he will promote his business on Instagram (@eftfarms) and also has a website in at eftfarms.ca. Shopping can be done online.

Vendors will look to a winter season that will hopefull keep their business afloat.

For now, all vendors will have the Alliston B.I.A Farmer’s Market to lean on until the end of October, every Saturday, from 8:00 a.m. to 2 p.m.

By Robert Belardi

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