Boba drinks and baked goods. Meat from seven Wyoming producers. raw milk, cheese and butter. Lettuce, blue cheese dressing and pickles. Unpack paper towels, candles and chocolates.
These are just a few of the locally sourced Wyoming products available at a new year-round Farmers’ Market that has opened in Fremont County, featuring locally produced foods and produce from more than 40 vendors – and counting.
The fledgling shop is open five days a week, much like a regular grocery store. But its sellers are all local producers, who regularly ship a new batch of produce when the shelves run out.
Now about 800 of the available 15,000 square feet are filled with Wyoming produce. That gives this business plenty of room for future growth, Jessica Fritz, co-owner of the Fremont Local Market, told Cowboy State Daily.
Fresh meat and eggs at the Fremont Local Market. (Photos courtesy)
pandemic surge
The model for the new company is for-profit, although the nonprofit Fremont Local Food is helping get it off the ground. While the idea for the year-round farmers’ market didn’t stem from the COVID-19 pandemic, it did help spark a spark, Fritz said.
The pandemic has helped make it clear to board members “that something like this could potentially be very important,” she said. “Because you’re not dealing with a whole bunch of different farmers in an open space, just one, basically a cashier who brings you all your produce while you go shopping.”
It’s all about local
The store already has around 200 customers a day, Fritz said, adding that regular opening hours and a wide range of available goods are key selling points.
“Consumers are super happy,” she said. “They love to stop by and grab the things they want. Everything reliable. We have a lot of people who want only local meat and only local eggs.
“The fact that they can get their milk and eggs and meat and then their bread products – and all right here on site – on schedules of hours that work for them.”
Finally, Fritz said she hopes to partner with Eat Wyoming so that products that can ship statewide are available to a broader market.
Whitt’s End Cattle Depot and Farm Stand near Cheyenne is finding increasing numbers of customers willing to buy locally produced produce, especially as inflation and supply chain issues narrow the price gap between premium local produce and grocery chains. (Photo courtesy)
Another option for producers
Consumers aren’t the only ones liking the new rule, Fitz said. Manufacturers also like the fact that they can give up products to have specific agents sell them, rather than waiting to sell their products during a limited time frame on weekends or weekdays.
Now their products are on sale five days a week, and they can do other things while they’re on sale.
One such producer is Tim Thornburg of Gold Standard Farm and Ranch in Riverton, who sells a variety of raw dairy products at Fremont’s local market, including more recently strawberry and chocolate flavored milk, as well as kefir and yogurt sweetened with local honey.
“I spoke to a local chocolatier just yesterday and we’re going to start using their syrup in our chocolate milk,” Thornburg said. “So not only will we be using our local raw milk, we will be using chocolate syrup here from a local chocolatier.”
Started with 1 cow
Thornburg and his wife Bobbie began milking cows in 2016 in response to a downturn in the oil and gas industry.
“At the time, I think my wife and I had a dairy cow,” he said. “We had some pigs and chickens, and I told her we either have to take it seriously and go all out, or we have to sell it all and move to town.”
The Thornburgs were fed up with the ups and downs of the oil and gas industry.
“You had four years of boom and then, depending on who was elected, you either had another four good years or four years of failure,” said Tim Thornburg. “You lived your life for four years straight.”
So the couple took all their savings and bought dairy cows.
Supply chain An eye opener
Then came the pandemic and the resulting supply chain issues, and suddenly Thornburg had more business than he could handle.
“I would say we were up to 11 cows at a time,” Thornburg said. “Right now we’re milking, well, I’ve got five cows right now. Three are in milk, two are dry. We wait for them to calve and then they get refreshed, so we start milking them again.”
Each cow generally produces five to six gallons a day, but Thornburg has one cow that produces 11 to 12 gallons a day. He’s tried breeding them – but no luck so far. She only produced bulls.
Thornburg said he believes the pandemic has opened people’s eyes about their food and where it comes from.
“(Groceries) don’t come from the backroom at Walmart or Safeway,” he said. “Farmers produce the food one way or another. So, I think it’s kind of an awakening that people are like, ‘Wow, I can go right out here to my local farmer and get the same thing. And I can talk to the farmer, I can find out how it’s produced. I can find out if they, you know, if they’re on antibiotics or if they’re spraying their veggies or something.’ You just believe them in the grocery store.”
Quality is a bargain
Price might be the only sticking point for some, Thornburg acknowledged. A gallon of raw milk produced on his farm costs $12.
With hay at $250 a bale and corn at $100 a week, his math lands right there.
“I’ll be the first to admit, yes, the prices in (Fremont Market) are probably higher than what you can go to the grocery store and buy it for,” Thornburg said. “But now I just set my price, and if somebody says, ‘Well, I can’t, that’s too much or something,’ I think fine, I just tell them, especially with milk, I said, ‘Fine , okay, you buy a $2,000 cow, then spend another $2,000 on milking equipment and have another $10,000 worth of feed from there, and then tell me what you need to get for a gallon of that milk?
Most Thornburg customers and others who shop at Fremont Market aren’t necessarily looking for bargains. They have special diets, want to source food locally to keep money circulating in the local economy, or they believe the quality of what they are getting is worth paying a little more for.
Close the gap
But as inflation continues to narrow the price differential between major retail markets and local markets, many stalls selling locally sourced food are beginning to see more customers.
Lene Whitt runs Whitt’s End Cattle Depot and Farm Stand about 12 miles west of Cheyenne, where about 33 vendors sell locally-sourced food five days a week.
The farmstead opened last November, but Whitt and her husband Augustus have been raising cattle and selling their meat online for about seven years.
They are aware of the price differentials for their meat and are very aware of grocery store prices when setting their own prices.
Recently, hay and corn prices have increased significantly, even when forage is bought in bulk. But so far they are sticking to their current prices.
“We don’t make a lot of money,” Whitt said. “But my husband says, ‘Well, we’re feeding America, and I love what I do.'”
Whitt feels that while price conscious, most of her customers prioritize better quality over price.
“Our prices are higher than Walmart because that’s what we’re into,” Whitt said. “Walmart has burgers for $4 a pound and we charge $6 if you buy in bulk.”
That’s an overall loss for the couple, but they make up for it somewhat with their quality steaks, which they can charge extra for. These charge higher prices, although they still compare well to grocery store prices.
The homemade cinnamon rolls at Whitt’s End Cattle Depot and Farm Stand never last long. (Photo courtesy)
Local producers source other local producers
Whitt also offers raw milk at the market and ice cream that she makes from her dairy cows.
The milk she sells only stays on the shelf for four days, after which it goes to another seller who turns it into cheese.
“We also buy eggs from the region,” she says. “Anyone around here can bring us eggs and we’ll put them in the farm stand. And then we have salsa and honey, honey mustard and barbecue sauce – they’re all locally sourced.”
One woman bakes cakes, another bakes cookies, and there’s even someone who crochets things.
“We try not to make a lot of stuff, but at Christmas we do ornaments, and we have some people who bake and bring us stuff once a month,” she added.
Among those one-offs are amazing cinnamon rolls, Whitt said, which sometimes drew quite a rush of customers for the dozen or so available in a weekend.
The business has done so well in its first year of operation that Whitt and her husband are considering a larger shed to expand their fledgling local grocery store.
***For all things Wyoming, sign up for our daily newsletter***
