Lack of Foot Traffic Leads to Demise of Pelham Farmers Market

In order to attract to more people to the Pelham farmers market, organizers realized that they needed offer a larger variety of products.

Bit in order to offer those products, organizers needed to attract enough foot traffic to make it worthwhile for vendors to come to the farmers market.

Community Markets, the organization that runs the Pelham Farmers Market, was unable to accomplish either goal in the end. Last week the organization decided to cancel the market after only two vendors agreed to commit to it this season.

“If there was a clear and dedicated interest expressed by the community atcively support and participate in building up the market, I’m sure we would have a conversation about bring it back,” said Frankie Rowland, marketing director for Community Markets. “We enjoyed working with the village. The folks we worked with were great, but we need more people involved.”

The Pelham market, which started in 2008, drew about 200 to 300 people per market day, according to Rowland. In order to become successful, the market would have need to draw 500 to 900 per market day.

Rowland said some of her organization’s more popular markets draw thousands of people per market day.

“Our other markets, generally, are doing well,” Rowland said. ‘"For example, our Larchmont market will open with about 20 vendors. Pelham has always been a challenge and I spent a considerable amount of time looking for resources and involvement—anything to try and build it up and get folks engaged.”

With so many other farmers markets in the area, it was difficult to convince vendors to commit to Pelham, Rowland said.

“Vendors really have to make difficult decisions about where they are going to focus their resources,” Rowland. “They have to consider the cost of gas and staffing. Based on that, they decided to go to different markets.”

Last year, Community Markets tried recruiting people to join a Pelham market committee. The goal for the committee would have been to brainstorm ideas for  bringing in local talent, such as musicians, chefs, and developing kid-friendly activities to increase community engagement.

No one came forward to join the committee.

“We knew that once we made the commitment to Pelham, expenses would be incurred,” Rowland said. “We didn’t want anyone to incur any additional expenses ifit wasn’t going to happen.”

Let Patch save you time. Get great local stories like this delivered right to your inbox or smartphone everyday with our free newsletter. Simple, fast sign-up here.

“Like” Pelham Patch on Facebook and follow us on Twitter .