Salt Fork Food Works, a Champaign-Urbana–based collective of restaurants, cafes and food producers, has teamed up with Jacksonville-based The Farms of Illinois to open a year-round Farmers Market Food Hub in downtown Springfield.
Lauren Brokish, co-owner of Salt Fork Food Works, said she and Clint Brand were already well-acquainted prior to the recent business partnership.
“When Clint launched The Farms of Illinois, we had contacted him about distributing our goat cheese out to the Springfield area,” she said. “There’s not that many diversified farmers in Illinois; if you’re not doing corn and soy, there’s not that many of us.”
Bland operates Bland Family Farm, raising root crops along with grass-finished beef and chickens. Last year, he teamed up with eight other Illinois farms to combine technology and a supply chain delivery system that allows individual customers to place orders for farm-to-table groceries.
Bland has also been a regular fixture at the Old Capitol Farmers Market and said his name recognition in the Springfield area, combined with Brokish’s retail experience, made the partnership a good fit.
“We had always talked about a possible retail space; she had all that experience. We had a lot of support in Springfield. We both leverage each other’s strengths,” Brand said. “It made sense for both of us to come together to start this.”
The Farmers Market Food Hub will operate out of space at 308 E. Adams, which most recently housed Ad Astra Wine & Tapas Bar before it closed in March. The Food Hub will be open from 8 a.m. to 2 p.m. on Saturday year-round, along with Wednesday during the Old Capitol Farmers Market.
The retail location will offer artisan breads and pastries from Central Illinois Bakehouse, farmstead cheeses from Prairie Fruits Farm & Creamery, and seasonal produce, meats and pantry goods from The Farms of Illinois network.
Brand said having a brick-and-mortar location will also provide a convenient pick-up spot for retail customers, versus paying a delivery fee or having to place a $100 minimum order.
“It’s great to have one place that will serve as an aggregation site,” Brokish said, noting that in the past the challenge was how to distribute fresh products to the area in a timely manner, other than “schlepping freezers and coolers to the farmers market every week. There’s a lot better infrastructure with a food hub.”
Springfield is not the first food hub for Salt Fork Food Works; Brokish said the model has already proven to be successful in Bloomington.
“We had been at the farmers market (in Bloomington) for 17 years, and during COVID we realized we wanted to do something more permanent. We wanted to have a presence regardless of whether or not the market was going to be open that week,” she said. “We piloted a farmers market-adjacent food hub in Bloomington and it was really successful.”
Salt Fork Food Works also operates Martinelli’s Market, a full-service grocery and deli in Champaign that is open seven days a week.
But Brokish said there are no plans to have daily operations in Springfield.
“If we’re trying to do fresh products seven days a week, it’s really hard,” she said. Brokish said being open one day a week eliminates variables such as bad weather and available labor that may interfere with daily harvesting. “If we’re able to plan for it (every Saturday), it supports our farmers with really clear deliverables.”
She hopes that the weekly schedule will also make it easier for consumers to plan.
“We really want to encourage people to get in the habit of doing their weekly grocery shopping, every single Saturday year-round, so that it’s not just a fun outing,” Brokish said. “One of the most impactful things you can do for your community and the climate is to shop local at the farmers market.”