Market Slogans

and longer pieces

What does your market say in its advertising?

Several of the markets doing brochures or print advertising have used slogans or phrases to better communicate with their audience. Many other organizations also attempt to influence the public consciousness toward paying more attention to localness and community in making purchases.

This page is presented in an effort to spread around some of good ideas in phrasing and approach to customers. You may either copy something directly from here, or use what you see here to spark your own thinking.

And when you come up with something, let us add it to this list.

1. Local Flavors, Familiar Faces. [Brittish Columbia Assoc. of Farmers' Markets-2010]
2. EVERY FAMILY NEEDS A FARMER. Do you know yours? [UDSA, 2010]
3. Choose local -- choose life for our communities.
4. If you don't get it locally, you just don't get it!
5. You can help create a healthier local economy by the way you use your purchasing power.
6. Do you feel like you have no choice but to buy food from anonymous sources? Well, today you can change that.
7. UnBEETable quality! --from the Damariscotta 2001 brochure.
8. Buy locally grown . . . right from the Farmer!
9. 26 years of LOCAL FRESHNESS --from the 2000 Camden brochure
10. Help strengthen the local economy, buy fresh, local, and in season! --from the 2000 Rockland Brochure
11. Farmers Markets and you help create a Strong Local Ecomony! --from the 2000 Rockland and Camden brochures
12. Real food from Maine. -- from the 1997 Camden Farmers' Market Brochure.
13. Quality Products from People You Know --from the 2000 Belfast brochure
14. A Farmers' Market is a collection of independent, local growers who have agreed to come together and offer their farm products for sale in a convenient, single location. Products will vary throughout the season. Farmers grow products that can be successfully grown in Maine, are ripe and in season. Farmers will attend market as their products come into season. --from the 2001 Fairfield brochure
15. 100% of the money you spend at the farmers market goes to support farms in the community, not to a middle-man or corporate headquarters. This helps strengthen the local economy. --from the 2001 Fairfield brochure
16. Purchasing from local farmers provides so much more than great tasting, nutritious food! These purchases also support growers and their families whose homes and farms are located where we live and work -- farms whos enviromentally friendly practices help protect local economies, drinking water, open space and air quality for everyone. --from "Core Values Northeast" letter, 2001.
17. Meet the local farmers from nearby towns. Adopt one or more of them as your personal gardeners!
18. 100% Maine grown produce picked fresh daily! -- from a 1985 Brewer poster
19. Buy your produce fresh, directly from the grower. -- from a 1985 Brewer poster
20. Bulk prices available on many vegetables. -- from a 1985 Brewer poster
21. Buy local fresh products. -- from the 2001 Sandy River Farmers Market brochure.
22. Good Farmers. Local Products. -- from the 2001 Mt. Desert Island Farmers' Market brochure.
23. Buy Local, Buy Fresh, Buy from the Farmer! -- from the 1999 Cumberland Farmers Market brochure.
24. Going Shopping? Shop the farmers' market first.
25. When you shop here you are a positive part of the local economy.
26. Keep your money local!
27. Bringing producers and consumers together again.
28. You have the right to choose healthy food!
29. Orono Farmer's Market has for several years used "Buy Locally Grown . . . Right from the Famrer!"

What is a Farmers' Market?

Farmers' Markets are ancient and simple. Many parts of the world have a tradition of farmers' markets going back for centuries. In today's rush for one-stop convenience shopping and year-round availability of foods from the global marketplace, our communities all too often have lost touch with the productivity of our small local farms. And the small scale grower has lost the connection with markets of appropriate scale. The Pittsfield Farmers' Market offers a solution where 100% of the shoppers dollar goes directly to the local farmer.

Not just one shop

It is helpful to understand that the market is a collection of independent growers each with their own standards of friendliness, quality, display, selection and price. They have joined together in the Farmers' Market Association to assure the shopping public of regular hours, high quality, and wide selection, and to thereby attract more customers than any one of them could do alone.

Many regular shoppers eventually settle on their favorite two or three farmers to do most of their business with because they feel these farmers best meet their needs.

Different kinds of farmers

Since there are so many different kind of farmers who are members of the Farmers' Market, they may never all be there at once.

Get to know the market!

Walk the market

It is important when first visiting the market, and occassionally thereafter, to walk the market to see who is there and what is being offered. Even the farmers themselves do this to see how their own stands compare with what the other farmers have brought. Your favorite farmer may not always be earliest with what's just starting to come into season, or may not carry that specialty item you've been searching for. Most farmers respect the `comparison shopper', and are not at all offended if you don't buy everything at their stand.

Talk to the farmers

They are generally well versed in what they do, and don't mind taking a minute to give gardening advice, discuss recipes, tell you when another farmer can be expected at market, or when strawberry season starts. This varies their routine at market, and spices up your day, as well, we hope.

Eat better ­ Eat in season

There is a natural variety to meals that comes with eating the luscious just-picked local produce as it is harvested. The ancient clockwork of the growing season is skillfully fine tuned by clever growers using both modern and ancient methods of season extension for a longer harvest time. Local produce is brought to you thousands of miles fresher.

We're looking for more members!

It is easy for startup gardeners and small farmers to begin marketing their produce without a large threshold of investment in production or marketing. We'll even help you get going.

If you are tired of walking the big warehouse aisles all year to do your shopping, now is the season to step outside! We farmers and gardeners at the Farmers' Market would love to have you visit us, and take home our fresh berries, salad greens, cooking vegetables, flowers, herbs or garden seedlings. With us FRESH is not an empty slogan. Our produce is only a few hours from the garden, with no sulfites, waxes or preservatives to maintain a "virtual freshness". In the fall, the season's bounty of storage vegetables continues the availability of quality local produce long after Jack Frost's arrival. Make the Farmers' Market a regular stop when you're out shopping and enjoy the harvest!

Step Outside - Shop Outdoors!

Fresh vegetables, fruits, meats, baked goods and other farmer-produced items are on sale at the Fairfield Farmers' Market every Wednesday afternoon and every Saturday morning from early May thru late October. Shop early for the best selection.

Rain or shine, all season long, over a dozen market members bring their harvest into town for the pleasure of the folks who want to be sure their food comes from the ground around us.

Our members produce their bounty on farms ranging in size from a large garden to several acres. Varieties of produce are selected for good flavor rather than the ability to be shipped thousands of miles. You'll taste the difference.

Decide what's for supper as you walk from vendor to vendor, learning what's in season this week, talking to the person who grew it, and learning where and how it was grown.

Over the season you will discover how the local produce season changes, with items coming into season and going out of season. You will see how the local weather is affecting the harvest, and learn the best times for buying bulk for freezing, drying or canning.

From the 2005 Orono brochure:
Going to market is a rich experience in meeting and greeting produce and people. One can see and taste what's in season and learn to prepare the season's local best with respect.

Farmers universally love to share recipes, so shoppers should be unafraid to ask what to do with one foodstuff or another.

Today the thrill of ourdoor markets is sweeping American towns and cities from Santa Monica to Orono.

This page was originally created in January, 2002, by Tom Roberts.