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Business & Tech

Haddonfield Farmer's Market Takes Root

A new lineup of vendors at a new downtown location fills this growing season with the promise of a fresh start.

Several days of rain finally broke Saturday into a breezy, sunny spring day—just in time for the 2011 opening of the Haddonfield Farmer’s Market.

Whether owing to the seasonably beautiful weather or its new placement in Kings Court, the open-air setup seems to have finally found its niche in both scale and approach.

Prior locations had either outsized the event (the Haddonfield speedline station) or sequestered it (the middle school parking lot), but the pass-through walkway from Ellis and Center streets to Kings Highway ensnared shoppers and passersby alike.

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Treats like kettle corn and gourmet dog biscuits gave two- and four-legged guests something to munch on, but home-grown organics were the order of the day. Produce and flowers were sourced from family farms as far south as Williamstown and as far north as Burlington.

John Valkusky and his fiancée Michelle Hart of Johnny Boy Farms expect that the proximity to Kings Highway will bring a lot more business from out-of-towners and casual pedestrians. The couple, who participated in the farmer’s market in 2010, say it constitutes “100 percent of our business” for the year.

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“We are growing our vegetables to bring them here,” Valkusky says. “We’re small and we do it part-time; this is the perfect fit for us.

“Even if we were able to have a market at our home in Mantua, we could never get this traffic being in one fixed location. Having this market is really priceless,” he says.

The couple grows certified organics from squash to heirloom tomatoes, and supplements this inventory with goods from other certified organic farmers in Salem, Cape May and Burlington counties, including New Jersey-grown coffee from Harry & Beans of Ocean View, NJ.

They hope their Haddonfield clientele will help them grow their business enough in the next few years to support a community-supported agriculture program.

“Our expectation for the business is to be at the point where it becomes full-time and the farm can sustain us financially,” Valkusky says. “The people who are buying from us here we hope would love to be buying from us throughout the season.”

Other niche entrepreneurs at the market include Amy Kinzel, whose Be Well Massage Therapy, LLC develops and retails certified organic skin care, hair care, body care and aromatherapy products.

“I’ve never done a farmer’s market before,” says Kinzel. “We’ve been in Haddonfield for seven years and people still tell us ‘we didn’t know you were here’ because we don’t have retail space in the office. So I decided to give this a try.”

Kinzel also shared table space with her young nephew, Ethan Gillespie, who was vending homemade greeting cards to help sponsor Camden children seeking to attend Sacred Heart School. It costs $300 to send a child to Sacred Heart for one year; since last August, he’s raised $1200 selling the cards at $5 a pack.

“Kids who can’t afford to go to school, I can provide that for a year or so,” he says.

“I just love the vibe in Haddonfield,” says Kinzel. “I love being here. I never considered another farmer’s market.”

 The Haddonfield Farmer’s Market runs through October 31 from 9 a.m. to noon Saturdays.

 

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