With the success of the farmers market in both the summer and fall, there are plans afoot to create an indoor market on every other Saturday of the month starting at the end of January.
“People really love the market, we’ve had such great response to the winter markets that we host in late November so the feedback, the response from both the vendors and our market patrons, has been we’d love to see more markets, we’d love to have markets available on a year-round basis,” said Erna Jensen, manager for Cranbrook Farmers Market.
“We’ve looked for locations that might be suitable and we are going to give this one a try, using the Ktunaxa gym. We think it’s a nice central, downtown location, it’s got parking available and should give us a good space to be able to create a really nice atmosphere for an indoor market to take place.
The first one will kick off on Saturday, Jan. 24, running from 10 a.m. - 1 p.m. at the old Tembec gym which is now part of the Ktunaxa Nation Council office. It will run every two weeks from there on in.
“We put out the call to vendors yesterday…but happy to report that the response in one day has been really great with lots of our farmers and food producers that we’re really excited about,” said Jensen.
“We love our artisans as well, but we know that food is often what draws people out to the market, so very excited about that.
“We’ll be working hard to pull it all together so that we can offer folks the opportunity to shop locally at the Cranbrook Farmers Market indoor market.”
While it is the middle of winter, there are still fresh produce options that will be available, added Jensen.
“Obviously, the climate that we live in, you’re not going to have the variety that we have at a summer market, but some of the vendors that have responded to date, we will have organic beef available, we’ll have farm-fresh eggs available, we’ll have fresh baked sourdough bread available.
“Carrots, some of the root veggies, apple cider, that kind of thing.”