The Master’s Table Farm Market is a pilot project of BRIDGES Healthy Cooking School creating a viable Senior Farmers’ Market Nutrition Program (SFMNP) based on the Dietary Guidelines for Americans and the USDA nutrition program recommendations and nutritional requirements for seniors. 

This project utilizes the USDA’s recommendations of behavioral economics and social marketing techniques to increase both the purchasing and the consumption of local fruits and vegetables.  This partnership of BRIDGES, local farmers, community senior centers and senior citizens creates an experimental distribution model supplying low-income senior consumers with local foods from area farmers.

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The Master’s Table Farm Market is of timely importance:

·         Current farm market distribution channels cater to those between the ages of 35 – 55 with a greater percentage of disposable income.

·         While seniors are currently a minority of farm market shoppers due to their reduced levels of disposable income, the current economic downturn will create larger populations of lower-income shoppers regardless of age.

·         In order to remain viable, local farmers and producers need assistance to identify and maximize additional consumer markets for product distribution and sales.

·         The aging baby boomers will soon begin to swell the ranks of the senior population in all income levels.   Now is the opportune time to create an education and distribution system which supports locally grown fruits and vegetables, and is available to all levels of disposable income.

·         The Master’s Table Farm Market allows seniors access to healthy, affordable locally grown fruits and vegetables throughout their lifetime – both as their age increases and as their discretionary income decreases.

In Connecticut, with a projected loss of 40-50,000 jobs in the next two years, our low-income seniors have quickly become an important subgroup to study. 

While they are currently a minority of farm market shoppers, the forecasted economic crisis will create a larger population of lower-income shoppers.  The Master’s Table Farm Market gave us valuable data of how to create options to purchase local foods, under different models, regardless of income. 

The Master’s Table Farm Market enabled the local food movement in the smaller communities surrounding Danbury, CT to continue to grow and adapt to our consumers regardless of the negative fluctuations in our state and national economy.

In the first year of the pilot phase, 2008, BRIDGES set up weekly Master’s Table Farm Markets at the senior centers in Morris, Middlebury and Washington, CT.  In choosing these communities:

·         We developed and tested the sale and distribution model in smaller communities before trying to replicate and implement this program in larger markets.

·         We captured geographically and economically diverse populations between affluent Litchfield and low-income Danbury.

In our first year of this pilot program, we served 2,390 customers, generating $14,640 in revenue for the 6 local farms and producers over 14 weeks, from June 30th to October 1, 2008. Additionally, in order to make the farm fresh produce even more accessible to the senior consumer, each farm vendor was asked to sell their produce at 10 % below the urban market prices.

Because of the Master’s Table Farm Market, 76% indicated that they have shopped more at Farm Markets this year than last year, of which 30% hadn’t shopped at a farm market in the last 5 years and 29% have never shopped at a Connecticut Farm Market ever.

We have proven that the Masters Table Farm Market brings new consumers to the Local Food movement.

We provided our 5 producers with $5,690 from a new consumer base that hasn’t purchased local foods in the last 5 years or more.  With the amount of baby boomers reaching senior citizen status, it is important to adequately prepare our nutrition programming and local food distribution systems for seniors – sooner rather than later!