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Bozeman Co-op Booted from Farmers’ Market

By Kelly Dean Wiseman, General Manager, Bozeman Comminuty Food Co-op , Guest Writer, 10-09-09

No Farmers' Market for You!

“Expecting the world to treat you fairly because you are good is like expecting the bull not to charge because you are a vegetarian.” – Dennis Wholey

We thought the idea was so simple, and such a great fit, that there would be no way there could be trouble. After all, what could be a better match than selling Co-op bread at our local farmers’ market? We weren’t looking for conflict or confrontation. We just wanted to peddle our humble loaves of bread. Trouble, it turns out, can plague even the most innocent of pursuits.

We’ve been making our own bread for a few years now, and we are proud of our little operation. We use organic wheat grown by farmers near Big Sandy, Montana, bringing you, our members, fine artisan and sandwich loaves that are significantly cheaper than other bakeries in town. Based on the daily sales and very loyal and repeat customers, we know we are on the right track.

So we ponied up forty dollars and applied for a booth at the Saturday Farmers’ Market. The good folks at Career Transitions, who organize and run the market, cashed the check. And then two of us set up a tent on a blustery day in June and proceeded to sell out of 45 loaves of bread in a little over an hour. I dashed to the Co-op and got 40 more, most of which we sold by noon. Once folks tasted the sourdough, they almost always bought a loaf: it’s that good. One woman from Butte bought three loaves, hoping they would freeze well.

We heard a lot of comments about how great it was to see the Co-op at the Market, that it is such a great fit and so on. Fun and good cheer all the way around. Until the following Thursday, when we received a rather tense phone call informing us that we were no longer welcome as vendors at the Saturday Market. They refunded our forty bucks, and that was that.

The rationale is that no storefronts are allowed, as this would cause a snowballing effect and diminish the character of the Market. We pointed out that there are already four greenhouses, a restaurant, and a bread bakery peddling their wares in the Market. The rather thin counterpoint was that businesses with storefronts were allowed in the market if they were vendors at the market before they became storefronts. No matter that in at least the case of the other bakery, it had been over 12 years since they had opened their building on Main Street, and under entirely different ownership.

So we were kicked out of the Saturday Farmers’ Market because we have a store. Never mind that we are owned by the community. Never mind that there is not a more appropriate product for a Farmers’ Market than bread made with Montana wheat. Never mind that the playing field is tilted in favor of other businesses. The folks making the rules cited dangerous precedents that could occur: “Once bread is allowed, next would be other items, e.g., meat, salads, condiments, sandwiches, etc. We would no longer be a Farmers’ Market.”

We even offered a solution to their concerns: insist that stores be locally-owned, allow the organizers to have final approval of what items are sold (similar to Sweet Pea), even require that food be Montana food, which turns out to be a rather radical proposition that would eliminate a number of vendors.

Oh well, time heals and irony reveals. I keep a plastic bottle next to my desk, a sort of physical testament to the lunacy of the logic behind our denial. The bottle was purchased at the Saturday Market from one of the vendors, and it has presumably passed the rigorous security benchmarks established by who-knows-whom. It’s a bottle of water. The brand? Nestle’s “Pure Life” water. Right there on the label you can find the source: “Public Water Supply, Denver, CO.”

For more information about the Co-op, visit www.bozo.coop.

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