What started as an idea to draw residents to Main Street 25 years ago has grown over the years to become the best market in Ontario, with vendors placed on a wait list to sell their products and goods.
The Newmarket Farmers’ Market will celebrate its quarter-century anniversary as a landmark event in the community. The first market day this year is this Saturday, May 4.
It has been a fixture at Riverwalk Commons with dozens of vendors taking part and thousands in attendance. Residents have come to rely on the downtown Newmarket Saturday morning mainstay for fresh local vegetables, flowers and products like honey, with many able to walk and cycle there to do their shopping and catch up with neighbours.
The revitalization of Main Street, and the opening of Riverwalk Commons with the splash pad feature, has seen visitors to the market double.
With more than 45 vendors, Katy Bennett, market manager, said, “We have a terrific variety of farmers from farms that grow a whole variety of vegetables to farmers that grow mushrooms, for example.”
The inaugural market opened in 1999 in a parking lot at Doug Duncan Drive and Timothy Street, where Riverwalk Commons is now located, with farmers from Holland Marsh, East Gwillimbury, Georgina and Uxbridge.
“We had 12 farmers at the very beginning, and we built it up as we went along,” said Jackie Playter, past treasurer and one of the founders of the market. “We added a few more members, and last year, they had 35.”
The market will feature a trolley travelling from a nearby community centre this year as part of a pilot project to enhance the event and bring people downtown without them having to find parking.
“For four Saturdays, we’re offering customers the opportunity to travel to and from historic downtown Newmarket in a replica 1920 trolley,” said Bennett. “The trolley will pick up customers from the Ray Twinney centre and bring them down to Main Street. We’ve been working with the BIA on Main Street, and they’re on board with this project.”
Playter, Joe Sponga, Marilyn Church, and Jim Bruce came up with the idea for the event 25 years ago. They established a board, viewed area farms, and managed to get a small sponsorship grant from the Town of Newmarket.
“The reason we first started the market was to revitalize downtown,” said Playter. “We’re all supporters of Main Street and downtown.”
The early events they planned have now become market traditions — the pie-eating contest, horse and wagon rides, clowns and live music (granted, it was CDs playing on “boombox” in the first few years.)
Farmers’ Market Ontario presented the 2023 Market of the Year award to Newmarket for its “outstanding efforts that go above and beyond to foster community engagement and support local agriculture.” The award recognizes the best market of the year, decided through an application process submitted by markets.
“I have always said from year Number 1 that we were the best market because we are a true market,” said Playter. “We have more farmers than we do crafts and that is a true farmers market.”
The market features local vendors who meet the market’s strict requirement that the products they sell must be locally grown — 70 per cent of which must be from their farm.
The market has remained a fixture at Riverwalk Commons for several years, with dozens of vendors taking part and thousands attending. There is currently a waitlist for vendors to participate in the market.
With files from Joseph Quigley and Debora Kelly.
