01/02/2022
A new year and an announcement from your friends at B&G Produce.
I'm not sure how many of you know the story about how B&G came to be, so I'd like to take a minute to share that story with you. It was late 2008 or early 2009 and there was an online discussion somewhere that asked young locals "what business they'd like to see come to Pierre." The resounding answer was "Target!" and I thought "sure, but that's not happening."
It made me think, though, about what I wanted to see in Pierre. After living in Indianapolis and San Diego, what did I miss from those cities? I missed a coffee shop open later than 4pm! I also missed weekly farmers' markets. Every Thursday while I lived in San Diego, I would walk down to my local farmers' market to pick up flowers, basil, avocados, tamales, carrots, and whatever other fresh produce and goods were available. I truly missed that experience and after talking with Matt, we thought, let's help start a farmers' market in Pierre.
In our efforts, we met another person who was also interested in starting a farmers' market. She said she'd handle all of the paperwork if we worked on getting vendors.
We quickly realized that finding produce vendors was going to be tricky, if not impossible. We were able to find a beef vendor, someone with dog biscuits, and a couple other vendors, but no produce. Ok, we thought...what if we grow some vegetables on my parents' land to help get the ball rolling. We had no intention of being vendors beyond year one. We, of course, wanted to shop at the market!
Our first market was May 23, 2009...a week after Matt and I got married. If you've been following our journey, you know we've been growing vegetables since then. Whether part-time or full-time, we have been growing healthy and delicious vegetables in some way since then. And, we've loved all of it.
But, all good things must come to an end. We decided in early fall that 2021 would be the last season for B&G Produce. And, as sad as we are to see this journey end, we are very excited to finally attain our initial goal. As of May 2022, we will be customers at the Capital City Farmers' Market, a market we are so proud to have started way back in 2009! (We are also excited about the possibility of taking a summer vacation!)
So, thank you to all of our customers along the way. Whether you are someone we met in the very beginning, somewhere in the middle, or just this past year...we appreciate each and every one of you.
Please keep supporting all the vendors at the Capital City Farmers' Market. We want to see it continue to grow beyond us...and we believe it will.
Thank you and cheers to 2022!!
Lindy and Matt
Debby and Crayton
