Heirloom products, the crown jewels of the modern farmers market, require two essentials: open-air pollination and heritage. These same factors also make the Mission Community Market a popular afternoon excursion.
The Community Market will return for its 12th year Thursday in a celebration that will also serve as the rebranding debut of the market’s parent organization, the non-profit formally known as CUESA, or Center for Urban Education about Sustainable Agriculture. The 29 years and 19 syllables of their previous title will become one word, two syllables, and a reframing of priorities: Foodwise.
“We are about education, farmers markets and community,” said Executive Director Christine Farren, reiterating the brand’s new tagline.
“We want to remain a leader and an innovator. And our priorities are also shifting in response to the pandemic, and in response to the racial equity reckoning that is long overdue. So we’ve got to lean into our strengths but also still differentiate ourselves as an educational organization.”
But it will also continue to be fun, running from 3 to 7 p.m. Thursdays on 22nd Street between Mission and Valencia streets. This week, it will feature a kids’ tent, tote bag giveaways, and live music from Manos Lindas, in partnership with Little Mission Studio.
The name Foodwise has previously been associated with the brand through its youth program, Foodwise Kids, which provides free nutrition and wellness programs through SFUSD, and Foodwise Teens, which offers paid internships to students in San Francisco. Organizers hope that expanding the name beyond these programs will recenter the organization in its mission to educate, elevate marginalized communities, and usher in a new generation of food leaders.
“When you have a market in a place where people live, it’s always going to be a little different,” says Lulu Meyer, Foodwise’s director of operations. “It’s kind of like a little community party every afternoon on Thursday. It’s still a lot of vendors to coordinate, a lot of work to do, but it’s a different vibe.”
“We want the market to be a place where you can come in to get pretty much everything you need, and maybe get some dinner, and sit down with your neighbors and listen to the music for a little while, have a little community space to hang out where most of your shopping needs are taken care of,” says Meyer.
To make the market happen, Foodwise coordinates with six different agencies on an annual or monthly basis, including the SFMTA, which requires the market to pay a meter recovery fee for all of the parking meters along 22nd Street while the market impedes their use. Monthly reports must also be made to the California Market Match Consortium to maintain federal grant support of the Market Match program, which offers shoppers using EBT up to $15 in matching funds, a program that has doubled since Covid began.
Each week, the street is closed before the vendors start to arrive around 2 p.m. to allow space for them to set up their tents without the threat of oncoming traffic.
“That’s kind of the fun part,” says Raquel Goldman, owner of Norte 54, a pan dulce stand that joined the market in 2020. Her day usually starts at 4 a.m. on market Thursdays, prepping pan dulce in the kitchen she shares with Nopalito on 18th Street.
“There’s definitely been times where it’s just like, go, go, go, up until 2 p.m.,” she says. “I think the big transition for me is finally being in the car and … it’s like I can finally take a deep breath of like, ‘okay, you got it, you made it.’ Because then the hard part, the hard work is done, and the rest is just interacting with the people.”
For a lot of vendors, this is where heritage comes in.
“Being a Latino with a Latino focused business, I really want to make sure I’m present in a neighborhood that exposes me to people whose ingredients these are,” says Emmanuel Galvan, owner of Bolita, which specializes in fresh masa, tortillas, sopes, guisados, and salsas.
“I want to make sure that I am not only making these things accessible to a farmers market audience, but also to the Mission neighbors that are there.”
For the most part, the market has seen little change in its vendor list over its many years of operation, a value Foodwise encourages. A few new operations, like Goldman’s pan dulce, and Galvan’s fresh masas, have been added to the list, rounding out offerings in response to what shoppers have asked to see.
The organization also works to prioritize vendors who have fewer direct marketing opportunities and who contribute a unique product; it’s a process of careful curation, coming down to a manicured list including breads and cheeses, produce, artisan body care products and dog food.
“You can put your product on the shelf, but then someone just sees it and is like, ‘I don’t know what that is,’ and will walk away … in the market, you can engage people’s curiosity,” says Galavan.
“It’s a special thing at the farmers market to get a lot of information from the people who are making the products and growing them. You can really interact and answer questions.”
