On Tuesday afternoon, health solutions graduate student Julia Pearl was walking east on Roosevelt Street. Unable to park closer to campus, Pearl found a local farmers market on her way back to her car.
“I love to support local farmers and I really believe in eating fruits and vegetables that have just been picked,” Pearl said. “And I love to support local companies that are making things, like the bagels I just purchased for my kids.”
This farmers market is a new initiative by Bodega 420, a neighborhood grocery and convenience store on the northwest corner of Fifth and Roosevelt streets. On Tuesdays from 3-6 p.m., Bodega 420 pulls the produce section from their store and places it out on the lawn.
“We understand that there is sort of a ‘social cache’ to calling something a farmers market,” Bodega 420 co-owner Adrian Fontes said. “Farmers markets were created because people wanted to be around each other. We like the idea that it’s a little hometown fair, that it’s got its little cuteness to it. You add in that component of healthy food, healthy lifestyle choices, and it’s good for business, so, why not? It’s a no-brainer.”
The produce sold by Bodega 420 comes from Crooked Sky Farms and is “Certified Naturally Grown,” meaning that no synthetic insecticides or pesticides were used during the growing process. The farm is located on 16th Avenue, north of Lower Buckeye Road.
The vegetable selection, which is picked the morning of the farmers market, complements local vendor booths who are invited to come out and sell handmade, family-friendly merchandise.
“The vendors get to know each other,” Fontes said. “They have relationships. They have banter. It’s nice, it’s familiar, it’s friendly. It’s community in all senses of the word.”
Mom and Pop’s Bagel and Bakery set up for the first time outside of Bodega 420 on Tuesday. With a storefront in Glendale, Lidia Manov and her brother travel to various farmers markets in the Phoenix area selling their parents’ homemade bagels, pastries and bread loaves.
“Mom-and-pops truly means mom-and-pops,” Manov said.
Soaps and other artisan breads are also available for purchase. Armed with beets, onions and community vendors, the farmers market is a response to the scarcity of traditional supermarket grocery stores in the downtown Phoenix area.
“We’re continuing the mission we started two years ago, which was to do what we could to solve the food desert problem that exists here in downtown Phoenix,” Fontes said.
A food desert is defined by the U.S. Department of Agriculture as “urban neighborhoods and rural towns without ready access to fresh, healthy, and affordable food.” The nearest grocery store is a Safeway located at McDowell Road and Fifth Street. However, this is not the only food source in the downtown area.
“People think that a grocery store has to be a large warehouse with huge air-conditioning units and all of the trappings,” Fontes said. “We’ve been trained as American consumers to discount and not pay attention to local sources of all our needs. We’ve been marketed into the narrow narrative that corporate America wants us to believe.”
The solution to this issue, according to Fontes, is not a large, corporate grocery store, but multiple small, locally-owned grocery stores.
“I would like nothing better than to be able to have the resources to open another small market, this size, down in the avenues over near Grand,” Fontes said. “I would love to do another one just on the other side of downtown like down by the baseball stadium.”
The Phoenix Public Market on Central Avenue and Pierce Street has twice weekly farmers’ markets in collaboration with Community Food Connections. The “Open Air Market” events are held Wednesdays from 5-8 p.m., Saturdays from 8 a.m. to 12 p.m. from May to September, and Saturdays from 8 a.m. to 1 p.m. from October to April.
The farmers market at Bodega 420 will continue to operate into the summer and fall seasons with no set end date or intention of closure. Its hours are expected to change at the beginning of the summer season.
Contact the reporter at carolyn.corcoran@asu.edu
