Start of Trimble County Farmers’ Market

In January, County Judge Executive John Ogburn contacted Regina Utz, Trimble County Agriculture and Natural Resources agent about starting a farmers’ market. Regina had already been in the works of planning a farmers' market after talking with the Agriculture Advisory council about some needs in the county. 

Trimble County has had two other farmers’ market attempts in the past. From the beginning she knew that there needed to be a new way to approach to this market compared to the years past. She worked with Pendleton County ANR agent, Lindie Huffman, to look over county demographics, what worked and didn’t work at past markets, and what marketing strategies we could implement to start fresh. We learned that the town is best suited for Thursdays 3pm-7pm. Having the market at this time is best for business from people getting off work and going home. The location was selected based on where the most traffic travels through there at that time. We chose the courthouse square in Bedford. This has the only stop light in the county. So people had to stop at the light and could see the farmers’ market set up from their spot on the road. 

When a potential farmers market was mentioned, Regina hosted a meeting at the extension office to talk with the community about what they were looking for in a market. With this meeting came creating a market committee, who created the vendor application, rules and procedures. When the market application process started, we received ten applications. With expansion still happening regularly!