Woodstock Farmers’ Market marks 30th Anniversary

July 13, 2022  |  By Waterbury Roundabout 

Woodstock Farmers’ Market owners in the produce department at their Woodstock store. Left to right: Patrick Crowl, founder and partner; Amelia Rappaport, human resources director and partner; Brandon Little, general manager and partner. Photo courtesy Woodstock Market

Woodstock Farmers’ Market founder Patrick Crowl remembers the beginning well. 

“Thirty years ago, my Dad called and asked me to help out for a summer at a roadside market he was buying in Woodstock,” he recalled recently. 

Today, the efforts of Jack and Patrick Crowl and their team continue as Woodstock Farmers’ Market with stores in Woodstock and Waterbury, 85 employees, and some $15 million in annual sales. “I can’t believe we’re celebrating 30 years,” Crowl said. 

The markets this summer are marking the occasion with a theme of “Local Food Is Love” and a focus on their three decades as a destination for locally grown produce, meat, and dairy products, along with many Vermont-made grocery items.

In 1992 when Crowl was just getting started, he recalls how the local food movement hadn’t yet taken off. But from the very beginning, he said he and his team have had a local focus. “We knew we needed the plumber, the electrician, and the second homeowner,” Crowl said.  “It was critical for us to keep it local, keep prices real, and elevate the service. Even today, we rely on both of our local communities to keep our doors open.” 

Back in the ’90s, the market sourced local products by cultivating relationships with nearby farmers and producers that are still going strong today with businesses such as Crossroad Farm, Klinger’s Bread Company, and Grafton Village Cheese. 

Amelia Rappaport, the market’s first employee who now is a partner and director of human resources remembers those steps. “We loved inviting our local food producers and farmers to demo samples,” she said. “I can’t tell you how many big-time producers got their start at Farmers’. It feels great to be that connected to our local food scene.”

Some of the company’s milestones: Doubling the Woodstock store size 2001; being named Retailer of the Year by the Specialty Food Association in 2009; Tropical Storm Irene in August 2011 which saw the Woodstock store closed for three months. In 2015, the company joined a group of national specialty retailers called the Good Food Collaborative along with names such as Zingerman’s in Ann Arbor, Michigan, and Di Bruno Brothers in Philadelphia. It added the Waterbury store in 2019. 

Most recently, Crowl and the team reinvented the business after closing both stores to the public during the first phase of the pandemic—Woodstock for three months (offering curbside service only) and Waterbury for nearly a year. 

Now back in the fray, the new challenge is finding enough staff.

“We are making our way and continuing to put our nose to the grindstone in the face of a new business landscape,” said partner and General Manager Brandon Little, who joined the team in 2008.“We are strong-willed and hire like-minded people, so we just need to keep coming up with new ways of doing what we do, motivating ourselves and our staff. It’s still fun after all these years.”