Capital City Public Market

 Remember the fiasco with the milk coming out of China? What about worries regarding the sanitary conditions of produce entering the U.S. from third world  countries? Well, apparently there are lots of consumers across America with real concerns. Locally, like-minded folks are flocking to the Capital City Public Market to buy directly from the farmers who grew the produce they want to eat. “Much to my surprise, the first year we did it which was 2006, at the height of the day and the peak of the season, there were approximately 10,000 customers that went through our market in 4 hours, the next year we did the count, it had grown up to 12,000 and last year we didn’t do the count but everybody could get a feel for the customer count based on those studies and we feel like in the peak of the season we were between 13,000-15,000 every Saturday, 4 hours a day.”

 That’s Karen Ellis, long time Manager of Capital City with more thoughts about why people are coming.

 (Ellis) “I think people are really going to want to know where their food is coming from, how it’s taken care of, how it’s grown, what products are used on it, when is it picked. Some of the crops, people get up at 4:00 AM to pick before they come to the market, so it’s as fresh as you can get it without going out and picking it out of the garden yourself.”

 Here’s an opportunity farmers…call 208-345-9287