Dec. 7, 2010 – I saw the first example, at least for me, of geographic greenhouse vegetable branding a few weeks ago while shopping at our local farmers' market.
Ours is a relatively large farmers' market for a city/county region of some 125,000 people or so, and is open Fridays and Saturdays. It's bustling at all hours. The city recently renovated the facility, making it much brighter inside. Kudos to those politicians for such an investment.
Our shopping strategy is quite similar to others who frequent farmers' markets. We browse the entire facility and every counter/stall area, checking prices and product quality carefully, before making our actual purchases. Every detail is noted.
So imagine my double-take about two weeks ago when I noticed the following sign for tomatoes:
LEAMINGTON TOMATOES
We see "greenhouse tomatoes" and sometimes "hothouse tomatoes" from time to time at the market, but this was a first for us. I'm not sure how many shoppers would have known that Leamington is a town/region some three hours away by car, or that it is home to North America's largest concentration of greenhouse vegetable production. But this particular vendor did, as does his colleagues.
I'll have to keep checking on the marketing signage, to see if this catches on with other vegetable vendors, who, except for the height of the field vegetable season and perhaps a few weeks in the dead of winter, exclusively sell Ontario-grown greenhouse vegetables at this market! Why not market these vegetables as "Leamington tomatoes" or "Ontario tomatoes, etc.?" Why not push "locally grown!"
Alberta greenhouse vegetable growers well know the value of farmers' markets, but is it fairly widespread across Canada? Do any Leamington growers operate stalls in such markets? Is this a new market opportunity?
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