The city’s market scene welcomes its newest member on Friday, as Bountiful Farmers’ Market in south Edmonton opens to the public for the first time.
The privately owned indoor market at 97 Street and 37 Avenue will be home to more than 100 vendors in a nearly 50,000 square foot warehouse. It will be open three days a week, 9 a.m. to 5 p.m., Friday to Sunday, all year long.
“When they announced that this new market was starting, we jumped on it right away. It was like, finally!” said Nicola Irving, owner of Irvings Farm Fresh. She said a multi-day market in Edmonton is long overdue. “We’ve been pushing for years to have something like this, but nobody actually did anything about it.”
Bountiful said the three-day opening weekend will have a festival feel, featuring a list of attractions including live performances. Around 25,000 customers are expected in the first week.
“We are actively growing our business and trying to expand our reach,” said Irving. “There will be a whole segment of new customers that come from this, and obviously with new customers come sales.”
The market says 80 per cent of the vendor’s items will be grown, made or baked locally. It will feature three Alberta breweries, two wineries, and a distillery – but alcohol cannot be consumed on site. Two-hundred free parking stalls will available for market-goers.
Nadine Krause, owner of The Farmhouse Bakery, is excited about becoming a bigger part of Edmonton’s growing market culture.
“It is a lifestyle. People want to get to know who is producing their food, where it’s coming from, how local is it,” she said.
Edmonton has some catching up to do to compete with its biggest provincial rival. Six similar markets already exist in Calgary.
“It always felt like they were far more advanced than we were up here in Edmonton in terms of buying local and farmers’ market-type scene,” said Irving.
She hopes this is the first step towards leveling the playing field in the farmers’ market version of the Battle of Alberta.
“It’s pretty exciting. It’s been a bit frantic this week.”
