Fresh produce comes to the French Market

The French Market Corporation announced last week that patrons, residents and chefs of the French Quarter as well as those living in surrounding neighborhoods will soon have weekly access to fresh, local produce.

Starting Oct. 15, the French Market will play host to a weekly Wednesday farmers market operated by the Crescent City Farmers Market. The market will bring Louisiana farmers back into the French Market to sell produce, seafood and other such local goods, an offering that hasn’t been available in that location in over in over thirty years.

“We are thrilled to bring Louisiana’s best food producers, growers and fishers to this sacred ground to provide…affordable food in a space created for this purpose 200 years ago,” said Kathryn Parker, executive director of Market Umbrella, the organization that’s operated the Crescent City Farmers Market since 1995.

The new farmers market is designed to appeal to tourists and residents alike. Parker said that Market Umbrella conducted research into the needs and wants of the surrounding French Market communities as well as of its customers to determine which goods would be most ideal.

According to their research, residents were most interested in produce, plants, flowers and baked goods. Tourists were most interested in grab-and-go items, baked good and preserves made with local ingredients. Likewise, Parker said, French Quarter chefs were also interested in fresh local produce, seafood and bread in addition to special loading zones to help with expedient food transport to restaurants.

With the rebirth of a fresh food market in the French Market, comes new opportunity for access to fresh, local produce for low- and moderate-income residents.

“Affordability for all market patrons is important so we will accept food stamps at this location just as we do our other locations of the Crescent City Farmers Market,” Parker said.

Jon Smith, executive director of the French Market Corporation, agrees and said that as a public benefits corporation, he and his team are tasked with ensuring the market appeals to all residents.

“Our first mission as a public benefit corporation is that we have a duty to the community,” Smith said. “With this farmers market we are going to provide a part of the city that doesn’t have much access to fresh local produce the chance to come and shop on a weekly basis, and hopefully more frequently than that, the chance to come and buy fresh, locally farm-raised produce.”

With the addition of the Wednesday market, Crescent City Farmers Market now operates in four neighborhoods across the city including the Tuesday market Uptown in Tulane University Square, the Thursday market in Mid-City at the American Can, and the Saturday market in the CBD.

Free 2-hour validated parking is available for farmers market shoppers at the French Market. The market will operate every Wednesday from 2-6 p.m.

“We know this is no small task but we have done our homework,” Parker said. “We know what people want and we are ready to deliver.”

This article originally published in the October 6, 2014 print edition of The Louisiana Weekly newspaper.