The hottest new business around south Baldwin County is not a new resort or restaurant, it is a farmers market. JPMorgan Chase & Co used their national newsletter to tout their investment in the Foley market and to emphasize that small business is 99.4% of all Alabama’s company’s.
An exert from the JPMorgan post stated: “In Foley, Alabama, on the Gulf Coast, we’ve supported the Coastal Alabama Farmers and Fishermens Market. The market has a vendor directory of more than 200 small local businesses that rotate through its facility throughout the year selling food sourced locally—everything from fruits and vegetables from nearby farms to baked goods to fresh seafood from the Gulf.”
“Small businesses are the backbone of Alabama’s economy, and when they grow, communities do, too,” said Victoria Adams Phipps, Vice President, Global Philanthropy at JPMorganChase.
A Market By and For the Community
Civic leaders established the market in the wake of the 2010 Deepwater Horizon oil spill, which devastated the region. “The idea was to create a place of self, of community,” says Foley Mayor Ralph Hellmich. JPMorganChase provided a $2.6 million New Markets Tax Credit equity investment to support the project.
Open year-round, the market has become a local hub that represents the heart and soul of Foley. It’s as much a place to catch up with neighbors as it is a showcase for the local, sustainable bounty of land and sea. The market also serves as a kind of incubator for the region, says Hellmich: “People have started with their ideas here and gone on to create a restaurant or a food vendor business somewhere else.” A salsa company and a bakery are among them.
The market has been ranked by both Newsweek and USA Today as one of the nation’s best. Yet its importance to Foley goes even deeper than the superb quality of its foods and other artisanal products. The small businesses of the Coastal Alabama Farmers and Fishermens Market strengthen the community and celebrate its traditions. Visit on a weekend morning and you see this everywhere—the vendors greeting their customers by name, the retirees socializing over coffee in the shade of the market’s roof, and the neighbors catching up on the latest gossip. You see it in local offerings, like Gulf shrimp, that contribute to sustainability and the livelihoods of small fishermen. And you see it in a new generation of small farmers carrying forward the traditions of their forebears.
“When you’re supporting local vendors, that money stays in your community [and] you’re keeping small business alive,” says the market’s manager, Alescia Forland, herself a third-generation farmer in the county. “We want everybody to feel connected to each other.”
The market has become a weekly visit for locals and tourist alike. Hundreds of articles and blog post mention the market. The organic growth of it’s popularity has spawned a new audience, which also brings more customers to the Foley region.
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