Community markets growing in popularity

SALT LAKE CITY — There was a time when natural foods were thought to appeal only to the "tree-hugger" generation, people who would wander the aisles of a grocery store with their recyclable shopping bags looking for anything labeled "organic" or "free-range."

But recent trends toward healthier eating and local sustainability show that consuming and supporting homegrown products is not just for hippies anymore.

About 19 years ago, Salt Lake City launched a venture that today is one of the most successful of its kind in the state. This year, the city's annual Farmers Market boasts more than 200 vendors — quite an improvement over the four or five vendors it started off with nearly two decades ago.

"The idea of a farmers market or an urban market was an existing one in Murray (at the time)," said Bob Farrington, former executive director of the Downtown Alliance — a nonprofit organization whose mission is to build culture, commerce and entertainment in Salt Lake's downtown area — and one of the original organizers of the market.

"It started first with growers, then a few years later we started adding more variety."

Today, the Saturday market in Pioneer Park, 300 South and 300 West, offers a variety of fresh goods from area farmers and growers, along with prepared food and beverages and packaged foods, said market manager Kim Ageli-Selin.

The Downtown Art and Craft Market is held on the south end of the park during the Farmers Market. More than 90 local artisans display their wares, crafted in Utah by Utahns.

The open-air market will run from 8 a.m. to 1 p.m. each Saturday through Oct. 22, with a smaller-scale weekday market from 4 p.m. to dusk on Tuesdays from Aug. 9 to Oct. 25.

The market has helped spawn the development of other local projects, such as cooperative markets and community supported agriculture.

Case in point: David and Jill Bell, owners of Draper-based Bell Organic Gardens. Today, the "mom and pop" operation has about 350 customers who purchase shares for their freshly grown produce and vegetables. And it all grew out of one chef who especially liked the tomatoes they grew in their backyard.

"It started as a garden that just got out of hand," David Bell said. "We loved gardening and turned it into a business."

Bell said they enjoyed the experience of growing something that "there was local demand for."