PORT ANGELES — The people pulling into downtown at dawn Saturdays — hoods up, gloves on, pickup trucks groaning — are a hardy lot.
During this time of year, Port Angeles Farmers Market vendors set up booths stocked with pickles, pot stickers, salsa, apples, earrings, kettle corn, knit hats, seafood chowder, cheese, chocolate chip cookies and dozens of other products amid a cold wind and post-holiday chill.
These growers and artisans are buffeted, yes. But they are also unbowed.
The Saturday event, from 10 a.m. until 2 p.m. at The Gateway pavilion at Front and Lincoln streets, has been the North Olympic Peninsula’s solo year-round farmers market for decades.
Past year tough
The past year was a tough one, said market board Treasurer Betsy Wharton.
Gross sales rose only about 4 percent between 2010 and ’11, to just north of $408,000. That’s about $7,800 per week for the 15 to 25 farmers, knitters, fishers, bakers and soup makers.
Yet in 2011, another kind of success bloomed.
Last spring, the Port Angeles Farmers Market added a credit-card payment system that lets people using food stamps, aka the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, to buy from its food vendors.
These shoppers use electronic benefits transfer, or EBT, cards to buy produce.
At the same time, the new card-reading system enables people with debit or credit cards to do the same.
Wharton said the market board planned on perhaps 10 percent of sales coming from EBT-, debit- and credit-card shoppers.
Payments with plastic instead reached $29,000, including $4,600 from EBT recipients, who Wharton said include a number of college students as well as families.
This means the farmers market is expanding its audience — which has been a market goal for years.
Wharton, along with board President Patty Hannah, does not want the Saturday scene at The Gateway pavilion to be only for the well-heeled shopper.
“We’re reaching more low-income families, and that is a really positive thing,” said Hannah.
“We’re hearing from them. They say, ‘This food is so much better.’”
The market board is planning a retreat Jan. 22 to talk about 2012.
The members are fortified by figures: 2010’s gross sales were $392,607 — a healthy jump from 2009’s $305,018 — and the market managed a slimmer increase through 2011.
“We feel lucky to have this growth,” Hannah said, “since the economy is so difficult. It sure shows local support.”
WSU survey
That support is reflected in other ways in the form of a “Rapid Market Assessment,” a survey conducted by Washington State University last summer.
On Aug. 13, the WSU team of volunteer surveyors reported some 1,714 people coming through the farmers market.
When asked their principal reasons for coming, the largest portion, 25 percent, responded that they wanted to support their local farmers.
These shoppers spent, on average, $16.64 at the market itself and $21.75 at other downtown Port Angeles businesses.
More than a third — 36 percent — reported coming to the farmers market two to four times a month.
Among the things they praised: the live music and the grass-fed beef from Clark Farms of Dungeness.
Things they wanted: coffee and more hot food.
In fact, there is coffee at the market at the Renaissance table.
Renaissance owner Lynn Keenan sets up just about every Saturday to promote her cafe and massage studio at Front and Peabody streets but also to offer local cheeses, fair-trade coffee and fancy chocolate.
The complete Rapid Market Assessment report, along with recipes, information about products, becoming a vendor and using EBT, debit or credit cards, are available at www.FarmersMarketPortAngeles.com. The market assessment is under “About the Market” via the “Board Documents” link.
Warne said she was especially impressed by those summertime crowd numbers in the WSU survey.
During December and January, she estimates that the volume of shoppers decreases to about 500.
Trial for vendors
And while The Gateway, with its Front Street parking lot just west of the market may be a felicitous location for shoppers, it has been a trial for vendors.
“Loading in and loading out is very difficult in that space,” Warne said, adding that The Gateway’s builders didn’t use input from vendors when they constructed the pavilion.
And there’s the blast from the bay.
“It would be cold wherever we went. But we get a real wind tunnel from the north,” Warne said.
Fortunately, Hank Gibson, a staunch supporter of the farmers market, built a wind screen for the market’s north side.
As 2012 starts to unfold, “we want to stay on our mission to help people eat better,” said Warne.
On the North Olympic Peninsula, local food in winter means a more limited selection, naturally, than that found in the supermarket.
“You can’t get cantaloupe right now” at the farmers market, Warne said with a smile.
Yet there have been Dungeness Valley strawberries, frozen this fall, sold from ice chests at the market.
Those are surrounded by sweet carrots, brilliant green and purple cabbages — and pickles from Wharton’s Clallam Canning Co.
“I’m part of the food chain,” Wharton quipped.
She grows much of the garlic and dill for her pickles and buys the cucumbers from Sunny Farms’ field.
And though Wharton said pickling is not a very profitable venture, she wants to help grow the local agricultural economy.
Warne is aligned with that idea, too.
While she wants more buyers to discover the Saturday gathering, she also hopes to bring in more vendors.
There are 32 spaces for booths and tables, but just over half are occupied this winter, she said.
That extends to music, too: Warne invites singers, bands, even chamber orchestras to set up Saturdays.
“We want to continue to encourage people to shop local,” Warne added, “and produce local.”
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Features Editor Diane Urbani de la Paz can be reached at 360-417-3550 or at diane.urbani@peninsuladailynews.com.
