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Date: 6/23/2016
EAST LONGMEADOW – State Sen. Eric Lesser invited officials from Boston Public Market to tour several Western Massachusetts farms on June 20, including Meadowbrook Farm in East Longmeadow.
Lesser said he considers Boston Market, which opened up a year ago in downtown Boston near Faneuil, to be a “transformative new public space.”
He added, “Their mission is to represent New England products and showcase New England agriculture … One of the things I noticed when I visited myself is that they’ve got products from all over New England … They have products from all over Massachusetts, but they actually don’t have a whole lot from Western Massachusetts.”
Lesser said the hope is the tour would create a partnership between growers in the western part of the state and those who sell products in the eastern part of the Commonwealth.
“Western Massachusetts is home to many family farms producing healthy, high quality food close to home,” he noted. “Collaboration with the Boston Public Market will open new opportunities for our local growers to reach new customers in eastern Massachusetts, helping our economy and creating new jobs in the process.”
Boston Public Market CEO Cheryl Cronin said Boston Market is always looking to recruit farms and individuals from the agricultural community to sell produce at the market.
Cronin said Boston Market would “love” more representation and products from Western Massachusetts, noting, “We’re flexible and open as to how we achieve that.”
John Burney, owner of Meadowbrook Farm, gave attendees a tour of his farm by showcasing a 94-acre parcel on Markham Road, which included rows of budding tomato plants, eggplants, a sweet corn field, and other produce such as pepper. Burney also gave a tour of the main farm stand on Meadowbrook Road where fresh strawberries were sold.
“I started off on a small part-time scale, just about three quarters of an acre of strawberries, and then it increased a little bit year by year,” he explained. “Right now we farm about 300 acres of vegetables. We market a small percentage here at the farm and we sell quite a bit to some local supermarkets. Big Y is one of our largest customers and their central distribution area is located right out of Springfield.”
Barney said a truck of produce is sent every day to Chelsea Market in the New England Produce Center.
“We’d be interested in talking about some additional marketing opportunities,” he said to Cronin.
After the tour, Cronin said she would be in contact with the farm in the coming days about potentially selling produce at Boston Public Market.
The tour also consisted of other locations in the area, including Austin Brothers Valley Farm, a Belchertown-based purveyor of beef, and Red Fire Farm in Granby.
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