Less than a decade ago, San Francisco had three farmers' markets. Now it has more than a dozen, ranging in size from CUESA's Saturday-morning vegetable spectacle on the Ferry Plaza to Urban Table's Tuesday "pocket market" on Yerba Buena Lane. And this growth mirrors what's happening around the nation. Bloomberg Business Week just reported that the number of farmers markets in America grew by 17% in 2010, to 7,125. And this isn't enough, say some.
But has San Francisco reached its saturation point? A recent New York Times story on the nationwide rise in farmers' markets find some farmers are complaining sales at individual markets are down because new markets cannibalize the old ones. In fact, the author quotes the director of Marin Markets as saying that in San Francisco there are "too many farmers' markets." Seattle, whose farmers' market boom happened years before San Francisco's, saw individual market sales figures drop in 2009, possibly because of the overcompetition.
What do you think? Does this city have too many? Do we need more?
