Dear Returning Middlebury College Faculty and Staff,
For folks who have been away: after just eight weeks, the college’s online local food market is a great success. Farmers like it. Participating faculty and staff give it great word of mouth. Here’s an update of the original announcement. Now that you’re back, jump in!
We are pleased to announce a year-round Middlebury College online Farmer’s Market. It’s a fantastic and innovative link between local farmers and you. You can browse online, clicking to purchase as you wish, from a constantly updated selection of the freshest produce, meat, dairy, bread, honey and prepared foods from nearby farms. Middlebury Magazine did a nice piece about the market.
On Tuesdays, stop by Mahaney Center For the Arts between 3:30pm and 5:30pm to pick up your super-local, super-fresh food. Your order will be bagged, pre-paid and ready to go, just steps from the curb. Everything in it will be only hours off the farm. And, once students are back, we’ll often have live music and food and drink samples.
- The food will have low embedded energy – extremely short travel distances and virtually no time between farm and kitchen.
- We have chosen the farms carefully, for a well-rounded selection of foods produced with best sustainable practices. Most are organic.
- Time is always tight for farmers. This is an exceptionally time-efficient method of sale for them.
- Finally, the margin is unusually good for farmers. They keep 90% of the sale, with 6% going to the folks in Charlotte who run the website and 4% to help pay for our market coordinator.
How good is the sum of all the above? So good that when we checked with them, both the Middlebury Farmers’ Market and Middlebury Natural Foods Co-op saw this not as competition but as a complement to their missions.
To browse this week’s selection and to sign up, go to www.yourfarmstand.com. In the upper-left, click “What’s For Sale?” and then in the “Choose Your Local Market” drop-down menu, click Middlebury College.
Visit us on Facebook to see the newest updates, recipes, and pictures.
AS A BONUS: THE FIRST FIFTY PEOPLE TO JOIN BETWEEN NOW AND SEPTEMBER 1 WILL RECEIVE THEIR FIRST ORDERS IN A LOCALLY-MADE CANVAS MARKET or Cooler BAG!
Greg Krathwohl, Market Coordinator
Francisca Drexel, Market Manager