THE PROBLEM
About Market Match
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Accessing organic, locally sourced food presents challenges due to its high cost and limited availability. This is magnified by the foods perishable nature resulting in significant waste.
Local, organic produce, while desirable and advantageous for personal health, is often overly expensive, with prices considerably higher than other food options. Additionally, these perishable items have a short shelf life, leading to considerable waste. Distributing fresh produce to underserved areas poses logistical challenges, compounded by the lack of community engagement in urban settings. The Market Match initiative aims to bridge this gap by exploring the intricacies of food production and sourcing for local events like farmers markets. By redistributing surplus produce to areas in need, we aim to combat food waste while fostering community connection through shared meals grown and enjoyed together.
TIMELINE
10 weeks
MAKE OF THE TEAM
Jamie Clauson, Claire Cvengros, Sy Thomas, & Lisa Winkler
KEY GOAL
Bridge the gap for fresh food in underserved areas of Chicago
Geographic Disparities
Concentration in Affluent Areas
Farmers Markets are typically concentrated in wealthier neighborhoods. This is often due to higher better infrastructure and economic viability. As a result geographic distribution of farmers markets reinforces socio-economic inequalities where these neighborhoods have better access to nutritious food.
Economic Barriers & Resilience
Even where farmers markets are physically accessible, economic barriers such as higher prices for fresh produce can limit their utility for low-income residence. Food deserts undermine community resilience, as poor nutrition affects general well-being. Tons of people in these communities are relying on convenience stores or fast food which perpetuate health issues. Limited public transportation options can make it difficult for residents of food deserts to travel to areas with farmers markets or other sources of fresh food.
Chicago Food Desert Map
There is usually a noticeable absence of farmers markets in designated food deserts. These areas, often on the South and West sides of Chicago, show limited access to fresh produce from farmers markets.
GREEN CITY FARMERS MARKET
Observation Session 1
On Saturday April 6, 2024, a team member attended the Green City Farmers Market in Lincoln Park, Chicago around 1pm. The market was extremely busy even though it was getting close to closing. By that time, many booths had already sold out of products for the day (more specifically, the bakery booths). Fresh produce, organic meats, and some preserved goods were the items most commonly found in surplus at the end of the day: mushrooms, organic meats such as beef, veal, and chicken, carrots, potatoes, squash, jelly/jams, beans, flowers, herbs, and other plants. Most of the interest was in the fresh cooked food and drinks, such as grilled cheese, chicken & waffles, fruit smoothies, and coffee, likely explaining why there was a lot of leftover produce at the end of the day.
Observation Session 2
On Saturday April 13, 2024, another team member attended the Green City Farmers Market in Lincoln Park, Chicago at 12:55 PM, right before closing at 1PM. The intention was to determine if there was any produce left. We learned from our Interviews (see attached) that vendors can only sell food that is in season, so there was not much produce to begin with. What was there was steadily being packed into trucks at the end. The majority of the vendors were large farms. One such farm, Nichol’s Farm out of Marengo, IL has a CSA that you can sign up for. A large farm like this already has distribution in place for their excess produce and likely sells at multiple markets over the course of a week. This makes us more inclined to target small/medium sized farms for a trial, who do not have other methods to distribute their extra produce.
Key Takeways
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People may view farmers’ markets as more of a social outing or a place to grab a bite to eat, versus a place to stock up on produce and groceries - likely explaining the surplus of fresh produce at the end of the day.
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It is seemingly fairly common for vendors to have surplus produce at the end of the market day.
BREAKING DOWN THE PROCESS
Finding the Problem
Problem, Divergence: Our group was founded on a shared passion for the sustainability space. We began our project by brainstorming as many ideas as we could for problems we had observed, first individually ideating and then coming together to share anything and everything we came up with.
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Problem, Convergence: We discovered that all of our ideas had a shared thread in healthy food, specifically locally grown, sustainably sourced foods and finding a way to combat food inequality in our communities. We converged on our problem as merging these two ideas and connecting the gap between them.
Being the Solution
Solution, Divergence: We began by exploring common sources for fresh, healthy food such as meal delivery services, grocery stores, restaurants, and the farmers themselves. We also looked into who would be impacted the most by access to fresh food, which after ideation, we came to people who live in food deserts.
Solution, Convergence: We agreed that the farmers had both the best quality food and the highest likelihood of excess. After identifying farmers as a great source of produce and farmers markets as a high-density population of farmers, we narrowed in on building a service to connect them with people who had the highest need, which is how Market Match was born!
Home Delivery and Farmers Markets Most Common Outlet
Home delivery (i.e. CSAs*) and farmers’ markets are currently the most common methods for farmers to rid of excess produce.
RESEARCH FINDINGS
Online Listings Often Inaccurate
Current online databases of local farmers’ markets are often inaccurate, listing incorrect hours or markets that no longer exist. Misinformation may be a barrier to accessing fresh foods at farmers’ markets.
Summer Season Farmers Markets Most Common and More Produce
Summer season farmers’ markets are the most common, although there are indoor Winter markets in the Chicago area. Summer farmers’ markets have more produce than winter ones. Raising awareness for the year-round markets may be an area of opportunity.
If Not to People, Excess Fed to Animals or Composted
When unable to pass their excess produce off to others, farmers may either feed the produce to their animals or compost it
Quantitative Data Gap on Farmers Markets Surplus Data
We attempted to find quantitative data on how much surplus goes to waste from Farmers Markets, but no sources are readily available. We tried contacting Friends of Evanston Farmers Market and City of Evanston, but neither had data. In fact they asked us to collect data and share with them!
More Awareness but Still Not Enough Access in Food Deserts.
There is more awareness of food deserts and the need for improved access to fresh food, including new nonprofits and government initiatives. However, there are still not enough services to meet the need. Farmers markets surplus is often overlooked as hard to incorporate through food banks that want non-perishable items.