Like a doughnut, the Milwaukee Public Market has a hole in its center, after organic food provider Fields Best decided to pull out of its premium vendor space. Fields Best provided market customers with fresh produce, salads and juices.
“We decided that we could better support the market and its goals by helping to get more of our growers and local farmers to sell to other vendors,” said Ron Doetch, executive director of Michael Fields Agricultural Institute, the East Troy business that operated Fields Best.
Doetch said the Public Market was ideal for vendors who are owner-operators of their businesses. However, for Field’s Best, the vendor operation in the Public Market took up too many of the institute’s resources, he said.
The Historic Third Ward Association took over the operation of the Milwaukee Public Market last year. Association president Ron San Felippo said he is currently in negotiations with a vendor similar to Field’s Best that would provide the same types of offerings to consumers.
“We have somebody we are negotiating with. We aren’t ready to release it yet, but we expect to have that replacement operating by May 1,” San Felippo said.
In the meantime, other vendors at the market have stepped up their offerings by providing salads and juices, since Fields Best’s departure, San Felippo said. The space in the market where Fields Best was located will be renovated to feature Sheridan’s wine bar and a small seating area, as well as space for a new vendor.
According to San Felippo, gross sales for the Public Market are “substantially higher,” so far this year than in past years.
Doetch also insisted that business in the Public Market was good overall. “We had a good loyal customer base, and we had a really solid business,” he said.
The Public Market has made some physical changes in the past year and has established a successful meeting conference and banquet business on the mezzanine level, San Felippo said.
“We have added a big-screen television and a public address system, and have added a lot of things to the building that we have learned that we need that it didn’t have,” said San Felippo.
San Felippo indicated that the market plans to renovate the first floor level to feature more seating areas, a full-service deli, and opportunities for current vendors to expand and develop over the next few months.
The Public Market also is looking forward to its outdoor market season, as well as its first wedding, which is booked for later this year, he said.
“We want to continue to do a better job of offering people what they want,” San Felippo said. “The market will always be food-oriented, but we want it to be a gathering place as well, a place where you know that when you go there, something interesting will always be going on, a place where you can not only buy whatever it is that you need, but that you can have a good time doing it too.”
Doetch said it is possible that Fields Best will continue on in the form of a partnership with an owner operator who would be able to devote more time to the retail aspect of the local products.
“We really think we can help the market more by working with farms and farmers, and encouraging them to work with different vendors to get those products into the market,” said Doetch. “Our core competence is not the retail business. The greater good is probably served by us working with farms and farm networks.”
Michael Fields Agricultural Institute is a research, outreach and educational institution that works with local growers, and many direct marketing farms that create products that can be sold directly to consumers. The institute conducts workshops to educate farmers on growing and selling processes, small plot intensive farming, and other related farming topics. The mission of the institute is accelerating sustainable local and regional food systems.
“There is kind of a momentum shift across the nation about food awareness, and where it comes from and how it is produced, and who produces it,” Doetch said. “There is a growing hunger for transparency in our food system.”
Initially, according to the Milwaukee Public Market concept and feasibility report from August 1999, the market was intended to be “a newly constructed market hall where independent, locally owned businesses sell fresh foods, especially locally grown produce, meat, poultry, seafood, cheese, and specialty food items.”
The market still offers those items, but according to San Felippo, the customers want more prepared foods and ready-to-eat items.
“Over the course of the year, we have made a number of substantial changes, which I think are resulting in a successful operation,” said San Felippo. “We have finally begun to get a better feel for what our customers want now, which is not necessarily what the initial intent of the market was set up to provide.”
