The Enumclaw Plateau Farmer’s Market had amazing news to report to the City Council last week.

“We had record vendor sales this year. We had record customer attendance. We had record food access customers. We had record POP club [participation],” said Market Manager Liz Clark. “It was a great year.”

Before 2023, the Market’s best year — at least in terms of sales — was its first in 2019, bringing in $118,500 in gross vendor sales; in terms of customers, the previous record was set in 2021 with just under 7,000 shoppers (the market did not count customers in 2019).

But the last season blew those numbers out of the water with just over 13,000 shoppers and $183,500 in gross vendor sales.

“Customer counts were crazy through the roof. We were double most weeks,” Clark said during the Oct. 23 meeting.

The busiest market day was June 22 with 957 customers.

Interestingly enough, the percentage of those gross vendor sales going to farmers was the lowest this last season over the Market’s five years in operation. Though the total gross sales, about $77,600, is the most gross sales by far since the Market’s first season, it only makes up 42% of the total gross sales. That was equivalent to 2019’s 44%, but far less than 2022, when 60% of gross sales went to farmers.

That means more money was spend on food processor and value-added vendors, artisans and crafter booths, and the prepared food vendors — all of which also doubled, or even tripled, gross sales over last year, and took higher percentages of the gross sale totals.

FOOD ACCESS

The Market began offering various food access programs in 2020 with the state’s Women, Infants, and Children/Senior Farmers Market Nutritional Program; it expanded in 2022 with the state’s SNAP program and the Power of Produce (POP) Club for kids.

As mentioned, record numbers of locals participated in these programs this year, in part because of additional match money provided by the Enumclaw City Council, who she thanked during the Oct. 23 meeting.

In total, more than $10,700 was on the table for people eligible for these programs to take advantage of; about $821 of that total went “unredeemed”, which means it was not spent at the market (some programs could be utilized at other participating markets) or used within the program time-frame.

The PoP Club, where kids can receive some form of market currency to help purchase fresh produce at the market, was particularly successful this year, with close to $5,500 redeemed ($5,875 total).

After going through the numbers, Clark noticed there was “one child was at every single market, which was pretty amazing.”