Attendance and sales were up once again for the Jamestown Public Market this year.
Market Director Linnea Carlson said moving to Third Street from Cherry Street helped increase the visibility of the market, “So we saw a lot of individuals who lived in Jamestown or were from the area who didn’t even know we had a Farmer’s Market, but because we were so visible they stopped to see what was going on and discovered us and then would come back week to week.”
Carlson said the new space made it possible to double the number of vendors from previous years. She said while cash sales aren’t analyzed at this time, SNAP, double-up-bucks, Sprouts program, and credit and debit sales are tracked, “The SNAP numbers drastically increased. Last year between SNAP and double-up, we reimbursed the farmers around $12,000 and this year it was $20,000. So we definitely saw a really big increase in sales and we believe that translates to cash sales as well. All of our vendors were thrilled with how the season went.”
Carlson said there were 415 individual customers for the Mobile Market program, which is the highest number of customers they’ve had at the Mobile Market. She credited Blue Cross Blue Shield of Western New York for helping support the addition of two sites for a total of five mobile market sites with the increase in customers.
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