The Santa Rosa Farmers Market is still considered to be relatively new to the Pace area, however it still keeps attracting local farmers and producers along with those seeking to purchasing those goods made from within the area.
Vendors at this market continue to bring a variety of local goods, including produce, baked breads, canned preserves, cooked meats and even wood-fired pizza.
Click Here: To view a photo gallery from the Santa Rosa Farmers Market in Pace
Since opening on May 16, the farmer’s market, located at the Pace Athletic Recreation Association football complex on Limbaugh Lane in Pace, is finding consistency, according to Bob Knowles, the Santa Rosa Farmers Market Association chairman.
“The turnout has been real consistent, it hasn’t been overwhelming but they just keeping dribbling in all morning,” Knowles said. “The people of Santa Rosa County are used to getting up early and a lot of our products will sell out by 10 a.m.”
Knowles is among the several vendors selling their produce at the market, which is open from 8 a.m. to 1 p.m. each Saturday throughout the year.
“We have been staying between 12 and 16 vendors every week,” Knowles said. “We signed four new vendors in the last two weeks.”
Knowles said local vendors are required to have produced their products in the area. Knowles said the event was started with the assistance of the University of Florida IFAS extension office and Santa Rosa county commissioners. County officials leased the ball park for the farmers market location.
Bob Sieminski of Forest Farms in Holt, who was also vital in bringing the market to Pace, is also surprised by the early success.
“I figured it would take two or three years to get this thing off the ground, but it’s off the ground already,” he said. “This county needed a farmer’s market, that is why we are doing this.”
Like Knowles, Sieminski previously sold his items at the Palafox Market in downtown Pensacola.
“Like on Palafox, the same people come week after week,” he said. “It’s a growing process.”
Word-of-mouth is beginning to work in the local market’s favor as well.
Rosie Burr took her family to the market for the first time on Saturday and liked the variety.
“There is a lot of neat stuff out here,” she said.
On a weekly basis, Raymond Hummel of Mom’s Heavenly Delights will travel to Pace from Navarre in order to sell baked goods made by his wife. Hummel anticipates the farmers market in Pace will grow.
“I don’t see why not, there is plenty of room and space for everybody and the fee is not too bad,” he said. “I see it getting bigger.”
This article originally appeared on Santa Rosa Press Gazette: Santa Rosa Farmers Market provides local produce and home made goods (PHOTOS, VIDEO)