Fresh produce, hot food and more at the new farm stop in the Central and Kinsman neighborhoods

After debuting last fall, a pop-up community market bringing fresh, local groceries to the Central and Kinsman neighborhoods will be returning this week — with more foods to offer, a new location and a renewed focus on serving nearby residents. 

The market, called a farm stop, is a mix between a farmers market and a small grocery store. 

It’s set up like a grocery store — produce together, dairy together, breads together — but the food is almost entirely sourced from local and regional farmers and producers. They keep most of the profit on each sale, while a small chunk stays with the organizers to cover operating costs.

The farm stop is organized by the Central Kinsman Wellness Collective, a group of residents and community partners aiming to bring healthy, affordable grocery options to the two neighborhoods. Their ultimate goal is to open a permanent farm stop, using the pop-up markets to prove that the concept will work. 

The four-day market held last fall was a success, said Morgan B. Parks, the program manager for Central Kinsman Wellness Collective, who works for the local nonprofit Environmental Health Watch. At the outset, the organization wasn’t sure if the concept would work or if anyone would show up. But each vendor sold at least half their product, while many sold more. 

This August, the farm stop is expanding. It will still be four days, but it will have more than double the number of vendors it had last year, from 11 to more than 25, Parks said. That means more options for shoppers. They’re stocking up on items that sold out last year like green beans, cheese and butter and adding new items like fresh juice and hot food. It will not have meat, though. 

The project is “refreshing,” said Queta Worley, a member of the collective who was born and raised in Central. She said the neighborhood needs a new place to get fresh food since the Dave’s in Central closed in 2019. Last year, she picked up eggs and sourdough bread from the farm stop. She’ll be back again this week. 

The farm stop is moving to a new location in the Kinsman neighborhood this August after hosting last year’s farm stop in a church in Central. The goal is to engage more residents than it did last year, Parks said. The collective is doorknocking in the neighborhoods and will offer a shuttle to and from several apartment buildings and public housing developments.  

New vendors to bring juices, sofrito and more 

About a dozen of the new vendors are residents who participated in the collective’s new program to coach residents interested in making or producing food, Parks said. 

It offered small grants and helped them navigate food regulations, state licensing and other start-up challenges. That includes a business that makes a seasoning blend for sofrito, a Puerto Rican cooking paste for rice, beans and stews. It also helped Dawn Glasco, a resident in Central, pass an inspection with the Ohio Department of Agriculture so she could start a business to sell fresh juices. 

Glasco began making juice after the COVID pandemic as part of a larger push to improve her health. Her co-workers and family asked her: Why not sell it? 

She was already a member of the Central Kinsman Wellness Collective, as someone passionate about bringing better food options to her neighborhood. Last October, she passed out juice samples at the collective’s first farm stop. But the grant from the incubator program means that, this year, she’ll sell the jewel-toned mixtures of fruits, greens and aromatics at the farm stop. 

“I’m excited. I’m grateful that we’ve come together as a community to do something to offer more to humanity,” Glasco said. “It’s a movement.”  

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Fresh fruit and veggies are coming to the Central Kinsman neighborhood this week in a new ‘farm stop’

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Last year’s farm stop sold thousands of dollars of groceries

Last year, the collective didn’t know how many people would shop at the farm stop. So it guaranteed each farmer or producer that the organization would cover the cost of half its goods, even if they didn’t technically sell.

But all the vendors met that metric, Parks said. So this year, they nixed that and set new goals: serve more people and bring in more revenue than last year. It served over 100 unique customers and brought in over $4,000 in revenue last year. 

An especially important metric they’ll be tracking this August is how many customers are from the Central and Kinsman neighborhoods, she said. Customers last fall poured in from not only around Cleveland but even from outside Cuyahoga County. That’s not a bad thing, Parks said, but the collective wants to ensure that the nearby residents whom the farm stop is meant to serve are dropping by. 

“The number of folks from the two neighborhoods … if that number can go up, I feel like we’re doing our job,” Parks said.

The group will be surveying neighborhood residents who visit about where they currently shop and whether they would consider visiting the farm stop regularly. 

Community wants to see permanent farm stop 

The pop-up farm stops the collective is hosting — they plan to put on one more this October — give the group an opportunity to build a customer base, establish supply chains and measure demand. 

This information will help them pitch funders to pay for a permanent store, Parks said.  

That’s essential because the farm stop doesn’t currently make enough to cover its costs, she said. While the farmers and producers typically turn a profit on their fruits and veggies, the collective can’t afford the logistical operations without some sort of grant. The pilot markets are currently subsidized by BUILD Health, a philanthropic effort to improve health equity.   

The group hopes to complete a business plan, which includes site selection and an estimate of start-up costs, by the end of this year, Parks said. Then it can begin fundraising. 

If a permanent farm stop does open, members of the collective voted that they would like it to operate it as a member co-operative, or co-op. Much of the details about how this would work are still unclear, Parks said. But typically a co-op means that community members can buy a share of the company, allowing members to vote on major decisions like whether or not a store will stay in a neighborhood. Profits, if they are generated, are often shared among members, Parks added.