Inside Farm Fresh Rhode Island’s Game-Changing Growth

Photography by Ryan T. Conaty.

Bonus Bucks are a win for the food insecure and farmers because they double the spending power for SNAP recipients, which doubles the earning potential for local farmers. “The model of Bonus Bucks reinforces such a strong local connection,” Rye adds. “It’s a federal benefit that supports food insecurity but it’s also in the way Sheri has built Bonus Bucks out as a program that has allowed for it to benefit local farms and the agriculture economy as well.”

On a Saturday morning in July, the Farm Fresh RI farmers market is bustling with activity. Families are wandering the vast open area that has all eight garage doors gaping wide to let in the fresh air. Farmers and vendors are mingling with shoppers, who glance over vegetables in every color of the rainbow. The scents of freshly brewed coffee and sweet confections from Buns Bakery are in the air. The Rocket food truck is parked out front and people are sitting on the marble slab benches munching on fried egg sandwiches with bacon while sipping coffee and chatting.

Around the corner, in the same Farm Fresh RI building, New Harvest Coffee and Spirits is open for business, serving its own beans roasted on site (that’s the aroma that permeates the air). It doubles as a cocktail bar in the afternoon, having moved out of the Providence Arcade into this new space. Across the street from Farm Fresh RI’s hub on Sims Avenue are two more local drink options: Industrious Spirit Company and Revival Brewery. Farmers market shoppers can wander from the food hub down to the distillery and brewery for an afternoon of socializing over cocktails and beer and visits from more food trucks and vendors. In addition to the Saturday farmers market, Farm Fresh also hosts the Providence Flea weekly Sunday markets from October through May, as well as the Holiday Markets and monthly Friday Night Fleas, showcasing wares from local artisans with food and drink for purchase.

Back in the food hub, Tallulah’s Taqueria is preparing to open this fall, says Farm Fresh RI’s real estate and community developer Lucie Searle. The windows are papered up to block out the interior activity, but painting and construction are well underway. “They are building a commissary, which will allow them to do prep for their existing restaurants as well as the one at Farm Fresh,” Searle says. “They will have dine-in and takeout, and they are working out the details within the next year or so to make their own tortillas, hopefully from locally grown corn.”

The nonprofit Red Tomato has already moved in and is facilitating connections to get more locally grown foods into mainstream grocery stores like Whole Foods. Robin Hollow Farm’s Providence headquarters is here, too, and they are using this facility to distribute more of their fresh flowers in the city. Future tenants include Wright’s Farm, which makes ice cream from the milk sourced from its own herd of dairy cows, says Searle. Providence Brewing Company, Rhed’s Hot Sauce and Anchor Toffee are also gearing up to open production and retail locations in the food hub.

“Rhed’s uses about 4,000 pounds of locally grown peppers annually to make their award-winning hot sauces,” Searle says. “They will be doing everything at Farm Fresh, including processing, bottling, retail and wholesale distribution.”

Photography by Ryan T. Conaty.

All of this business activity at Farm Fresh RI contributes to one major goal. “We want to help achieve something that is called fifty by sixty,” Searle says. “It’s a goal for New England to produce 50 percent of what we consume by 2060. And in everything that Farm Fresh does with our programs, we try to help achieve that goal.” All of these businesses are making local food products, and they are all using local ingredients to do it. “It strengthens the market for locally grown,” Searle says. “There is nothing that will sustain farms better than that.”

To achieve that goal by 2060, Farm Fresh RI also invests in the youngest generation. They work with local schools to get more fresh farm ingredients like asparagus and apples into cafeterias. At farmers markets, they organize kids’ crafts and activities with prize incentives that inspire them to eat more produce. Back in the farmers market courtyard, Festival Ballet gives dancing lessons to a group of waddling toddlers and jubilant preschoolers dressed in bright clothing, their smiling caregivers close by.

Kids wander the hall alongside parents, looking at local produce spread out on tables, tasting healthy items and asking questions. Wright’s Dairy Farm is on site explaining that their ice cream is cow to cone, made from the milk of its own herd of dairy cows, proving it doesn’t just come out of a carton in the freezer section of a grocery store. Inside the hall, a woman carrying a baby is followed by five children, each a few inches shorter than the next, traveling from vendor booth to vendor booth like ducklings in a row. They’re taking it all in and seeing, firsthand, where their food comes from.