People who eat or grow locally grown food but can’t make time for the Saturday farmer’s market will have a new option this year.
They’ll be able to buy and sell their produce online, under a pilot program being launched in Haines and Juneau.
“Salt and Soil Marketplace” will be running by the summer, Colin Peacock of the Southeast Alaska Watershed Coalition said at last week’s Farmer’s Summit held in Haines.
“The goal is to increase local food availability to all people in Southeast Alaska,” Peacock said. A similar program called “Food Hub” already is under way in Kenai.
The food hub idea is 30 years old, and numbers of them have tripled in the past 20 years, Peacock said.
Besides produce, the website should be able to sell wild food, eggs, artisan items like handmade soaps, and even fish and shellfish, Peacock said. Fish would have to be sold through a direct market permit for seafood, he said.
Pick-up spots would likely be existing stores, Peacock said.
Required permitting by the state Department of Environmental Conservation is “gray area,” he said. “The food hub doesn’t buy the food. It just provides a place for people to buy it and pick it up. The DEC understands there’s a need for this as an opportunity for people to buy food.”
Leslie Evenden, a gardener who grows primarily for her family, said the marketplace is an attractive idea. Evenden maintains a large garden, including a domed greenhouse, in her backyard. Expanding to a full-blown commercial operation would be a big commitment for her, but selling smaller amounts through the online marketplace might work, she said.
“It makes things different. I could sell a small quantity and not feel like I’m standing at the Farmer’s Market all day (with only a few items to sell),” Evenden said.
For more information, contact Peacock at the Southeast Alaska Watershed Coalition, 520-270-6605 or email him at [email protected].