Fun, Food & Farmers
Secrets of Success from a Leading Farmers Market Manager
Acres U.S.A. Interviews Pamela Boyar
December 2006, Acres U.S.A.

   Pamela Boyar, director of the Sunset Valley Farmers Market in Austin, Texas, has been named Farmers Market Manager of the Year by the North American Farmers’ Direct Marketing Association. Her foray into the farmers market world began in 1997, when she started a small 12-vendor market in the People’s Pharmacy parking lot in Austin. The market quickly outgrew the space and was moved to the parking lot of the Westlake High School Annex, and in late 2004 moved again to its current location at the Toney Burger Center in South Austin. The move brought with it a name change to Sunset Valley Farmers Market.
   Boyar’s commitment to the market and to her vendors has led to it becoming the highest-grossing grower-only farmers market in Texas. She has been dedicated to the farm community, particularly organic farmers, for more than 25 years. Back in 1980, she started a fresh-pressed juice company, and in 1986 she began distributing organically grown produce directly from farmers to restaurants in California.

ACRES U.S.A. You run what’s been called one of the top farmers markets in America. How did this come about — what’s your background?

PAMELA BOYAR. I’ve been into the health field for almost 30 years now, and bringing health to people is one of my main objectives. Many years ago a friend talked to me about the value of good food, and at that point my life changed. I started eating raw fruits and vegetables and spent a lot of time searching for the best sources of good food. I wanted to find the best source of anything that I was putting into my body. I lived in California at that time, and I created a juice business, which also sent me in search of more farmers — and there were many, many farmers living in Ventura County. We used to sell juice to movie stars and celebrities — people like Cher, Don Henley, Pat Boone, Herbie Hancock, Johnny Rivers — we would deliver it to their homes. Then I started my own produce business where I would actually go to the farms and deliver produce to some of the top chefs in L.A. — Wolfgang Puck, Nancy Silverton, Michel Richard. This was in the 1980s, when California cuisine was just beginning. It was a whole new era — at that time, people had not seen the kind of food these chefs were creating. Now we take that kind of California nouvelle cuisine for granted, the mix of everything from Pan-Asian to Hispanic, but at that point nobody was doing that. Food was very traditional.

ACRES U.S.A. This was a time when ingredients and variety and quality started to be noticed and talked about?

BOYAR. Yes, and chefs were generally not stars at that time. There were a few, such as Julia Child, but not many. Wolfgang Puck basically brought chefs into the limelight. He also was very interested in fresh, organic food from local farms, and in 1986 I was one of the first organic foragers to visit farms in search of unusual, fresh, interesting food. Meyer lemons are an example — they had been grown in the early 1900s and then basically disappeared. Some of the farmers started growing them in Escondido area, and I brought this forgotten fruit into the restaurants. Meyer lemons are now a staple. Wolfgang Puck started using them — he would make Meyer lemon meringue pie or chiffon pie, and Nancy Silverton was using them. I would also bring dates from the Palm Springs area, fresh dates off the trees. I tried to find unusual products that were not mainstream — mulberries, heirloom tomatoes, heirloom seeds, different kinds of tangerines. In 1992 I moved to Texas and started working for Whole Foods, where I created a whole local growers’ program.

ACRES U.S.A. This was early in Whole Foods’ meteoric growth?

BOYAR. Very early. I started working for them at about the time that the “home-town feeling” was beginning to get lost. We did a few things I had already done in California but were innovative for Texas. We held an event called “What’s Cooking in the Park,” which featured 20 chefs and 20 growers. The chefs cooked what the growers brought and created a whole meal around it — it was a tasting for people to see how to use local produce. It was a very successful event, and we held it twice. Then we created a farmers market in the parking lot of Whole Foods. That was a very innovative idea because not only was it great for the farmers to get that exposure, but Whole Foods also benefited. Texas is very seasonal, so whatever the customers couldn’t find at the farmers market, they would buy in the store. It was a win-win situation for everyone at that point.

ACRES U.S.A. It might seem odd to have people shopping for food in your grocery store’s parking lot — that you’re losing sales.

BOYAR. Well, in reality they didn’t lose sales, they gained sales, and they gained a façade of helping the local farmer.

ACRES U.S.A. Shortly thereafter you started a farmers market in a suburb of Austin?

BOYAR. I created the Westlake Farmers Market in 1997. We started with 12 vendors. We still have nine of the original 12 in the market today, and all in all we probably have a hundred vendors, with 80 that show up every week. We are a year-round market. Two years ago we had to find a new location because we outgrew our original spot. Now it’s held in the parking lot of the Toney Burger Center, in the city of Sunset Valley. We changed our name two years ago to Sunset Valley Farmers Market.

ACRES U.S.A. For people who don’t know the area, this is not a distant, far-flung or super affluent suburb, it’s very close in to central Austin and is in a parking lot of a sports stadium.

BOYAR. The stadium is owned by the Austin Independent School District. Actually, Sunset Valley is a very affluent city, but it’s only a mile big with a population of 450 people.

ACRES U.S.A. So describe a typical market day. You said you have 80 to 100 vendors, are they all growers? How are you different from other farmers markets?

BOYAR. Everybody must make or grow what they sell in the market.

ACRES U.S.A. So no wholesalers or resellers are allowed?

BOYAR. No resellers. The city gave us a percentage guideline to follow, which is 55 percent farmers — that could be meat, cheese, eggs, nuts, fruits, vegetables, plants — and 30 percent food people with prepared, value-added products that use locally grown food or are produced in Austin or in Texas; everything in our market is from the state of Texas. And then 15 percent is local artisans.

ACRES U.S.A. What sort of success have you heard reported or seen from some of the farmers who come week after week?

BOYAR. Since we have moved to the new location people are doing at least 20 percent more business because of the availability of space that we have in the parking lot — it’s about 10 acres. During the week it looks like a parking lot, but then we come in and create an oasis, every week! It’s like elves come in and create this incredible ambiance, then in four hours we break it down and you’d never know we were there.

ACRES U.S.A. A whole city sprouts up, in effect.

BOYAR. It is a whole city. It’s so funny — one time it was raining and I had to go home and change my clothes. When I came back, I couldn’t believe how beautiful the market was! It was like a sea of tents in the middle of this big parking lot. It was so grand, I almost expected to find a tribe of Bedouins — if you were dying of thirst in the desert and all of sudden you saw a whole city of Bedouins — that’s how I felt. Here’s this blank parking lot in the middle of concrete Austin and suddenly you come across this beautiful city that’s vibrant with fresh fruits and vegetables and healthy food. By the way, the food in the market is chemical-free — it’s all healthy food, all natural food. I don’t allow vendors unless they make make healthy food.

ACRES U.S.A. So if there were someone selling baked goods, it would be scones, not homemade twinkies?

BOYAR. Right. But if they could make a healthy homemade twinkie, that would be OK.

ACRES U.S.A. How important is the market to the farmers that come there?

BOYAR. For a lot of them, it is their only outlet, for some it’s 50 percent of their income, for some 75, for others 25. It’s a very important source of income because they don’t have to wait for their money. Over the last two years since we’ve moved, I have seen farmers pay off their farms, get out of debt, send their kids to college, take vacations, things that they didn’t think that they could do before.

ACRES U.S.A. That really underscores the viability of farmers markets as a business plan for independent growers. Are there certain things you’ve seen that the bright lights, the shining examples, do that the less successful farmers don’t?

BOYAR. Marketing is the key. I have always said you can be the best farmer in the world, but if you do not know how to market your product, you’ll turn it under in the field. We have one farmer who came in and created the most incredible booth. They took a chance, spent a little more money, and actually made a little grocery store inside the farmers market. You could walk in, get a basket — they created a whole atmosphere. Now they’re the biggest-grossing farmers in the market. Other farmers started following that example and setting their booths up in similar ways. They saw all the people going into that booth, and they wanted those customers too.

ACRES U.S.A. How high is up? What could a farmer gross in a four-hour period on a one-day-a-week market?

BOYAR. Some of our farmers are grossing $100,000 a year.

ACRES U.S.A. So when you stress marketing, you’re talking about merchandising, visual merchandising, communicating with the customers — do people have to be a born salesman or a creative advertising type, or is this a learnable skill?

BOYAR. I do think it is learnable, and I feel the most important aspect of success at the farmers market is creating that relationship with your customer. The customer wants to have that relationship with the person who is growing their food. That’s why they’re coming to the farmers market.

ACRES U.S.A. So it isn’t a sales pitch the customer wants to hear as much as a sense of genuineness and sincerity?

BOYAR. Yes. They want to have a sense of trust and know that what they’re buying is going to be safe for them to eat, that it is going to be the highest quality. That’s how you create the repeat customer, and that’s how your business becomes successful — with the repeat customer. I’ve always said that you can go to a restaurant and have the best food but bad service and you won’t go back, but when you have good food and great service, you will always go back. It’s the experience that people are looking for, and if you create that experience at the market, it will bring them back over and over again. The bottom line is everyone wants to be loved, and when you share your passion and your love with your customer, they feel it.

ACRES U.S.A. What are some of the things you’ve done to create that ambiance, that special feeling in the market, to make it that oasis?

BOYAR. I’m a meditator, and I bring that energy into the market. That is the most important aspect of the market for me. If I can’t create an atmosphere that is full of love and joy and happiness so that when people leave they feel good, the day isn’t worth it for me.

ACRES U.S.A. It is obvious that your vendors care for and respect you, it’s not an adversarial, grumbling-as-they-pay- their-rent sort of relationship. Does that carry through to the visiting customers, too?

BOYAR. Yes. I work very, very hard for my vendors. To me they’re the most important part of the market. For years and years I’ve worked to make sure they come first. One of the most important things we can do is to keep the small family farmer alive. If we lose the small family farmer, this country is doomed.

ACRES U.S.A. So in the big picture, people are looking to connect to their food, they’re looking for quality, they’re looking for variety and freshness, but there’s really a bigger reason for farmers markets — to provide a livelihood for people who are going to get lost on the commodity treadmill.

BOYAR. Yes, and that is exactly what is happening to food right now. Our food safety is in danger, and that is one reason why. The big corporations are buying up all the seed, taking control of our food — genetically engineered food is a big part of it. When the United States went into Iraq and helped create a constitution for them, one of the actions was to make it unconstitutional to own heirloom seeds. To me, that is a very scary proposition because if we do not have heirloom seeds then we cannot grow our own food. If these big companies take control of all of our seeds and we have to keep buying seeds from them every season instead of replanting our own, then we are totally at their mercy.

ACRES U.S.A. We’ve occasionally heard that people who are interested in clean, fresh food don’t want to hear about politics, but the truth is that politics are a part of the equation.

BOYAR. It’s more than people can understand at this point, and the general public is very naive as to what’s going on. I just heard that they’re trying to pass a bill now to irradiate everything that comes into this country, meaning that any life force left in that food will basically be killed through irradiation. A lot of our food is now imported. It’s starting to come in from China. It comes in from all over the world. This is why it is so important to support the small family farmer. What is happening with the NAIS? This is another example of big government trying to take away small family farmers’ rights to grow and raise animals on a small scale. The farmers markets are our biggest hope for food safety at this point, and people need to be aware of and support them, and support small, local family farms — or even start growing their own food.

ACRES U.S.A. In a lot of the country there seems to be a great divide — people with means can pay Whole Foods’ prices, but others are buying factory-farmed chicken legs in dozen packs from Wal- Mart. Do you find a real cross section of the population coming to the market, or is it striated as well?

BOYAR. I would have to say that our clientele — just because of where we are located — is more affluent. I also feel that more educated people tend to understand more about eating healthy food. The average person in this country who has to work, both husband and wife, do not have time to cook — all they see on the television is fast food, and all they can afford for a large family is cheaper food. What they don’t understand is that they’re poisoning themselves with this cheaper food — they are putting all sorts of hormones, antibiotics, hydrogenated oils and refined sugars into their bodies. That’s why we see so much obesity, so much craziness in the world — people are flipping out.

ACRES U.S.A. So you think the big divide is probably educational versus income, and as people learn about food and how important it is, they’ll seek out quality?

BOYAR. Right. That was what was so important about somebody like Dick Gregory — he knew what was going on with good food and how fast food literally closes you down so that you can’t think for yourself. If you don’t have money to shop at a farmers market, then go buy seeds and grow a little garden in your own backyard.

ACRES U.S.A. You touched briefly on food safety. Have you had any food safety issues at the market? How hard is it to work with the regulators?

BOYAR. So far we have had no issues with food safety. In the ten years that we’ve been open, we have never had one problem with food — no one getting sick, nothing. I always say that God made our bodies a certain way and didn’t have to improve on it. He also made food a certain way. Why is man trying to improve on that in unnatural ways? What is wrong with being simple? We have come so far from simplicity in our lives, but you know what? Simplicity works. You can be so happy in simplicity. In this complicated world, if we could live more simply, everybody would be a lot better off.

ACRES U.S.A. So really, the common sense of the farmers has eliminated any potential market problems with food safety?

BOYAR. Yes. The vendors take so much pride in their products. They’re striving for excellence and don’t want to bring anything that’s not right to the market.

ACRES U.S.A. Since your market’s been open, there has been a new city-sponsored market open and others, but yours has continued to grow. What are the differences in farmers markets out there? What do you see as the reason yours has prospered?

BOYAR. There are two reasons why the market has prospered. One is that I embrace agritourism. The North American Farm Direct Marketing Association really educated me on the benefits of agritourism, and by creating festivals and that atmosphere the market has grown. Festivals bring people in, and we educate them. They come in for the fun, and then we get to teach them about where their food comes from.

ACRES U.S.A. What are some examples of festivals or events that you’ve held?

BOYAR. We have a Strawberry Jubilee, Peach Jamboree, Blackberry Bonanza, and more. There are two types of festivals at the market. One is based on a local food that is in season — tomato, strawberry, peaches, apples. The other is based on a holiday — Easter, Halloween, Christmas, Thanksgiving. This is another important thing I want to talk about. I have been given so much in my life that I believe in giving back. The farmers market is a place where non-profit organizations can come and raise money — for Katrina, that first week we raised $4,000 in four hours. Last week we had a non-profit called TreeFolks that helped plant trees around the city. In four hours they sold $32,000 in trees!

ACRES U.S.A. That’s amazing.

BOYAR. I’m blown away by that. They were expecting $10,000 and they made $32,000. Soto partner with charity organizations is a fabulous thing to do. We also have a café in the middle of our market where people can sit, eat the food that’s there, talk with friends, and listen to live music. We have a kids area where kids can get their face painted — sometimes it’s educational, sometimes they’ll be painting pumpkins, and other times we have a moonwalk. If the kids want to come, it brings the parents.

ACRES U.S.A. Obviously you didn’t start ten years ago with all these layers, but you just keep adding another wrinkle, another layer of intricacy or color or flavor to the market.

BOYER. I come up with one idea after the next. They never stop, because I love this so much. I have so much passion and so much love. When you asked what makes this market successful — I will have to say agritourism is great, but the passion and love that I have for this market and my enthusiasm is what really made this market grow. I have been dedicated to this market for ten years, and I’ve been dedicated to the small family farmer for 30 years. This is my service in this lifetime, to help these small family farmers. However it needs to happen, I will do it, whether it’s bringing in a moonwalk, live music, whatever. If it will bring people in to buy fresh produce, I’ll do it. I have no shame.

ACRES U.S.A. If someone was looking to start a farmers market in their own area, then, the secret, if there is one, is not in the nuts and bolts and mechanics, it’s in being truly passionate and doing it for the right reason?

BOYAR. For me it is, because I’m not very good at the nuts and bolts. My partner Grace has always handled the nuts and bolts for me.
BOYAR. But you do need to be organized. Organizational skills are very important.

ACRES U.S.A. Have other markets affected your business? Have you lost vendors, have you suffered from competition?

BOYAR. Not really. When this other market originally opened up, I lost vendors, but some of them have returned. It really doesn’t matter. We are an entity of our own, and at this point nothing can touch it. Other markets have different personalities, different flairs, different takes. Everybody does things in their own way, and that’s what makes each market so individual in this country. In Santa Monica, they don’t really need to do anything because people just come to shop. They have so many farmers in Southern California that they don’t need to entice people to bring them in. They’re just shoppers, they’re not coming on a Saturday morning to relax. It’s a Wednesday afternoon, they go in, and they spend their money, that’s simply where they buy their food.

ACRES U.S.A. . . . comparable to stopping by the grocery store?

BOYAR. Right, although it is still an outing because people look forward to that Wednesday farmers market. It’s a place where they meet people. The atmosphere in a farmers market is so different than a supermarket because you don’t talk to people in the supermarket. In a farmers market people are more available and open to conversation. Man is community — the human being is wired to live in community, and we have lost community. The only community left is really when people go to church on Sunday morning or if you’re in a spiritual community or a farmers market.

ACRES U.S.A. Otherwise there’s the workplace, which is often pretty solitary, or people go home and watch TV and live in their air conditioning.

BOYAR. I encourage anyone and everyone to start growing, to start shopping, to eat healthier, to really look at their lives and see what the meaning of life is — are they really fulfilling why they’re here? Putting good food in your body is so important to be able to be clear on those issues.

ACRES U.S.A. So the small farmer is trying to compete in the world marketplace, but there is an option: to grow products that could be sold directly to people and marketed this way.

BOYAR. Yes, and with Wal-Mart and Whole Foods taking over organics, we are going to see a big change in the sector in the next ten years. Between the government creating new standards and Wal-Mart and Whole Foods coming in, organic product is going into mass production, and we’re going to lose a lot of the nutrients that the smaller farmer can still put in his soil. With this massive- scale farming, it is very difficult to really create very nutritious food. People probably do not want to hear this, but our soils are also becoming so mineral deficient that even if it’s organic produce, it might not be that high quality. The soil is all-important, and when people are growing in massive amounts it is really hard to replenish that soil. A farmer who has 40 or 100 acres, however, can still viably do this. I encourage every farmer to look into these “new old ways.” There are a lot of people who are looking into different ways to replenish our soil naturally and give back the minerals that are so deficient.

To learn more about the Sunset Valley Farmers Market visit www.sunsetvalleyfarmersmarket.org. Pamela Boyar can be contacted at 512-280-1976, e-mail info@svfm.org.