Fresh, local food available year-round

Although spring is around the corner, many outdoor farmers markets are still closed, which can make it difficult to find fresh, local groceries.

The Farmers’ Market, a greengrocer located on North Lamar, is a one-stop shop for local produce, obscure spices, international fare and artisan meats and cheeses.

The Farmers’ Market has bushel-loads of character, from the handwoven shopping baskets to the handwritten labels describing which town, state or country the produce is from.

The shelves are stocked with local goods, including Papa’s BBQ sauce, Thames Comeback sauce and bread from Honey Bee Bakery and Lusa.

Deaton’s Bee Farm, in Walls, produces the market’s honey. Billy Ray’s Farm in Yocona supplies its milk and butter.  

The local produce varies based on what is in season, and what cannot be grown locally comes from a few distributors and large produce houses out of Birmingham and Memphis.

“We try to do as much local stuff as possible, but, of course, you can’t be entirely local. For example, you can’t get citrus or bananas here,” Liz Coppola, owner of the Farmers’ Market, said. “The only things you can find local right now are greens like collard greens and turnip greens and root vegetables like turnips, rutabagas and sweet potatoes. In the spring time, you can get everything, like kale, brussels sprouts, green spinaches, lettuces and broccoli— things that can’t quite stand up to summer heat.”

The Farmers’ Market also offers an assortment of artisan meats. All of the meat is processed in-house at Stan’s Country Store, a business in Batesville owned by Frank Coppola, Liz’s husband.

Almost 50 percent of the meat produced at Stan’s Country Store is sold at the Farmers’ Market and, like the produce, the meat selection is seasonal.

“They do all the cutting and curing of the meats; they don’t buy anything that is already cut,” Liz said.

The pork comes from hog farmer Stan Holcomb in Como, who originally built the store.

The Farmers’ Market offers locally-pastured beef from Brown Dairy Farm.

“(Owner of Brown Dairy Farms, Billy Ray Brown) now has beef cattle as well as dairy cattle, so we are getting cows from him,” Liz said. “After the cows are slaughtered, the beef goes out to Stan’s and it will hang for around three weeks, and then we cut it.”

For many locavores, the idea of buying local means that customers can buy what they want and not what major, chain grocers want them to buy.

“In beef for instance, the big box stores push you,” Frank said. “They want you to buy two things, and that’s steaks and hamburgers. It is a very simple way to break the cow down for them. The top of the cow becomes steaks and the bottom of the cow becomes hamburgers. But there are a lot of really good cuts that are in there, that get lost in there and that are economical.”

Liz said the benefit of running a small grocery store is being able to listen to the customers. The inventory is based on what customers say they want and what they cannot find.

“It’s good for them, and it’s good for us,” she said.

Oxford local and frequent customer Daniel Morrow shops at the Farmers’ Market twice a week.

“Even though everything in there isn’t local, or not in an hour’s drive, or whatever you want to define local as, they make as much of an effort to be as local as possible,” Morrow said. “Everything that they sell, they have researched.

Everything seems to be not as processed and good for you, unlike what you would get at Kroger.”

Buying local not only supports a more sustainable food system, it supports an entire community.

“(It) keeps your community strong, and it keeps your money in the community,” Liz said. “If you go to Walmart and spend $500, then it’s great for Walmart. That money doesn’t necessarily stay in your community, but if you were to spend that money at a local merchant, then that merchant will turn around and, in all likelihood, would spend it with other local people.”

The Farmers’ Market makes buying local easy and affordable. By planting dollars close to home, the community can grow.

“To be able to talk about your food and find out where it came from, to know the farmers that did it and know how they did it – I think it’s not just beneficial, but at some point it becomes necessary,” Frank said.