Saskatoon Farmers’ Market reopens its doors after COVID-19 hiatus

The Saskatoon Farmers’ Market is back.

The market welcomed dozens of customers back to its location at Koyl Avenue near the airport Saturday for the first time since mid-March after COVID-19 forced the market into online orders only.

Executive director Erika Quiring said being back, albeit under completely different circumstances, feels like a normal spring morning at the market.

“It does feel like it’s back,” she said looking around the half-empty building. “We’re anticipating this is a pretty good week, I think. It’s been a trial and error week and then we’ll implement some improvements as we go.”

Part of opening back up was aligning the market’s safety guidelines with the province’s, even though the market voluntarily closed once COVID-19 cases were confirmed in Saskatchewan.

That process involved submitting proposals and working in collaboration with health professionals and inspectors to ensure safe and healthy operations.

Customers should be aware of sanitizing at the front entrance, directions on the floor and a limited selection of vendors as Quiring finds space for vendors looking to return. Vendors and volunteers are constantly sanitizing surfaces as an added measure.

Setting up clear directions, areas to move and space for each vendors happened in a matter of days as Quiring and her team gutted the existing space to allow for a pleasant shopping experience.

“It’s basically been 10 days of whirlwind,” Quiring said of the preparations. “Because we still did the online store last weekend, that was our focus until Tuesday this week. Then on Tuesday we just started ripping this place apart and setting it up all over again with a different layout and footprint.”

With customers lining up outside eager to get their hands on some locally-sourced goods, it gave Quiring confidence that the market was back for the spring and summer months.

Quiring isn’t sure how phase 3 of the province’s reopening plan will change things, but she expects up to 15 more vendors being added for next Saturday.

“As we have expanding capacity, then we will modify one little thing at a time. Obviously the thing that we’re missing the most this morning is hot coffee and hot chocolate, so that’s something that we’re really looking forward to being able to do,” she said.

“I don’t know what that’s going to look like for us in phase three or phase four, but it’s my expectation that as the other types of businesses that are similar to our individual vendor businesses are opening then we would seek to follow those same guidelines.”

The market operates from 8 a.m. until 2 p.m. every Saturday.