Vendors find success at Salem Saturday Market despite challenging year

The final Salem Saturday Market of 2020 was held this weekend, the culmination of a year marked by the need for vendors, shoppers and staff to adapt to the coronavirus pandemic.

They faced evolving guidelines around wearing masks, practicing social distancing and providing hand-washing stations or sanitizer. There were also fundamental shifts in market culture, such as the absence of performances and student buskers, the lack of samples offered and limited ability to pick your own produce. 

Despite those challenges, vendors said, the year was largely successful, both from a business perspective as well as a social one.

"The farmers market has given us the opportunity to have this sliver of reality," said Sarah Witter of Fetch Coffee Roasters. 

Witter launched her business in October 2019 and only began attending the Salem Saturday Market with three weeks left in the season on advice from vendors at the Moreland Farmers Market.

"I finally did and I wish I would have started sooner," she said.

She said the vast majority of people she's encountered at the market have worn masks and followed social distancing guidelines, which helped create a positive, successful environment.

It allowed her and others to relax and chat with strangers in a way that has been rare to find since restrictions on public life went into place in mid-March. 

Despite early concerns that it might not open for the season, the market launched the first weekend in April, as usual, and was open every Saturday since, except when it temporarily closed due to hazardous air quality from wildfire smoke.

Record wildfires:Oregon's 2020 wildfire season set records for destruction. It could be just the beginning

Some vendors declined to participate this year due to the pandemic, while others bowed out after the destructive September wildfires. But due in part to available space, the market has hosted two dozen new vendors since July, said Lisa Sherman, executive director of the Salem Saturday Market.

On average the market was at about 50 percent capacity through the year, she said.

Initially, only "essential" vendors were allowed to participate due to the restrictions put into place by state officials. Essential vendors sold items found in a grocery store, such as food and soap, while non-essential items included arts and crafts. 

But that restriction was eventually removed. Later it would become a recommendation — and later still a requirement — that vendors and shoppers wear masks. These changing guidelines necessitated the market initiate an education campaign that included mass mailers to vendors and signs at the market.

Chaplain:Salem chaplain carries burdens of patients, hospital workers

“(The guidelines) were changing almost daily at one point, then weekly,” Sherman said. “It’s been costly and time consuming for sure, but that’s something we’ve had to adjust to, as with all businesses, due to COVID.”

Neil Austin of Austin Farm has been a vendor at the Salem Saturday Market for 20 years. He said business this year was about 80 percent of normal, market foot traffic was down and he hadn't seen some of his regular customers at all.

His booth looked far different than normal, too.

Instead of customers being able to pick out their own apples from apple boxes on tables, Neil and his wife, Marian, put them in plastic bags in $5 and $10 sizes. Posts with rope tied between them kept customers back several feet from the table. No samples were available.

But he noted that people have seemed to relax in the face of the pandemic, not as concerned about keeping 6 feet of space at booths or using hand sanitizer frequently.

Jody Beckwith of Wildcraft Herbarium said she believes the farmers market was a safer option than shopping in a grocery store. Not only is it outdoors, but fewer people handle products as they go from the supplier to the consumer.

This was her fourth year at the Salem Saturday Market and she said this was the best year she had. She sells soaps, so was allowed to sell at the market from the beginning.

But the other markets and fairs Beckwith usually attends were cancelled this year.

"I really hope next year we're back to normal to some degree," she said.

Reporter Connor Radnovich covers the Oregon Legislature and state government. Contact him at cradnovich@statesmanjournal.com or 503-399-6864, or follow him on Twitter at @CDRadnovich.

Support local journalism by subscribing to the Statesman Journal.