WSU Farmers Market Takes 2017 Break After Declining Sales

Wayne State University Farmers Market, one of the growing number of farmers markets in Metro Detroit in the past decade, will take a break in 2017 season and plans to return in June 2018.

Sales slipped the past couple of years at he weekly campus market alongside Cass Avenue , which has operated for nine years.

SEED Wayne, the founding sponsor, will transfer operations to WSU's Office of Campus Sustainability and the Center for Health and Community Impact. They'll run operations jointly next year, according to a WSU media release.

“Construction on Woodward and Cass kept many customers away,” Kami Pothukuchi, director of SEED Wayne, which is dedicated to building sustainable food systems. “The market also had to move to a location with fewer pedestrians." 

Since 2008, vendors earned nearly $2 million and served an estimated 200,000 customers. More than 200 students were volunteers or employees.

Thousands of patrons, including seniors and students who live nearby, used government-funded nutrition benefits such as SNAP (Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, also called food stamps) and WIC Project FRESH and Senior Project FRESH, the handout says.