News

GOOD FOOD, GOOD BEER, AND THE REST IS HISTORY

5th Annual Event @ New Market, 2nd & Lombard in Historic Philadelphia
Saturday Jul 18, 2009 6-9pm

We invite you to this great local food and beer-tasting annual event, now in its fifth year. Many great local restaurants and micro breweries will offer tastings of their finest under the shambles in Philadelphia's Society Hill.

Restaurants coming include Le Virtu, Penne, Southwark, Rx, Xochitl, Run-for-the-Hills. Among the brewers are Philadelphia Brewing Company, Dock Street, Stoudts Brewing Company, Yards, Dogfish Head, Troegs, Earth, Bread & Brewery, and Sly Fox. Farm to City puts on this event as a fundraiser for the Philadelphia Convivium of Slow Food and Green Village Philadelphia.

Reserve Tickets Now

At Flower Show, Green Winners - Vance Lehmkuhl, blogger @ Philly.com Mar 2, 2009. Farm to City wins 2009 Sustainability Award from Pennsylvania Horticulture Society and Pennsylvania Environmental Council.

Bryn Mawr farmers market clears a hurdle - Philadelphia Inquirer Feb 19, 2009

THE COMMON MARKET - A local food distribution center opens for business, July 2008

The Common Market Philadelphia is a non-profit wholesale distribution center of farm products produced in Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Maryland and Delaware. Its mission is to buy food from local growers who strive for high quality products and to sell to businesses and institutions who want to buy from local sources and to know who produces their food. The Common Market can help growers diversify their marketing. Net income will be used to assist start-up food businesses supplied by the warehouse and thereby increase sales by local farmers.

The Common Market opened July 2008 to supply hospitals, colleges, and nursing homes in the greater Philadelphia area and add other buyers such as restaurants, caterers, and grocery stores soon after startup.

James DeMarsh is the Common Market's first general manager. Mr. DeMarsh worked for five years on a vegetable farm and is the former supply manager for the Tuscarora Organic Growers Cooperative. “I truly appreciate the hard work farmers do to grow our food,” said DeMarsh. “We will work closely with our farmers to agree on a fair price so that the farm community can thrive.”

Farm to City, with the East Park Revitalization Alliance, was instrumental in developing the concept for the Common Market. In early 2005, we put together a project team and an application for a planning grant to fund a feasibility study and business plan for the distribution center. As a result of our efforts, the team received a $100,000 grant from the State of Pennsylvania Department of Community and Economic Development's First Industries Fund.

Since completion of these studies in late 2007, Farm to City worked with the East Park Revitalization Alliance and White Dog Community Enterprises to hire the Common Market's first manager and to plan for the mid-2008 opening of the distribution center. The Common Market is located in the SHARE warehouse in North Philadelphia. Bob Pierson, Farm to City's program director, is on the board of directors of the Common Market. Other directors are Ann Karlen, Tatiana Granados, Haile Johnston, Rob Amsterdam, and Jack Cavanaugh.

The website for the Common Market, www.commonmarketphila.org will be more fully developed soon.

Read what Harold Brubaker wrote about the Common Market in the August 6th Philadelphia Inquirer.

Farm to City named 2008 Small Business of the Year for the Region by the U.S. Small Business Administration after being nominated by the Wharton Small Business Development Center. See article, GETTING THEIR HANDS DIRTY - Wharton Small Business Development Center, Jun 2008

Farm to City wins the 2007 Triple Bottom Line Award, Business Category, awarded by the Sustainable Business Network of Greater Philadelphia.

Updated Jun 30, 2009 mr