There are people who love food, and then there are people like Edinboro Market’s Executive Director Marti Martz and her husband and partner, Operations Manager Curtis Hals, who eat, sleep and dream about food.

“We love food—that’s what it boils down to, right? That’s why we started this whole thing,” said Martz.

A Community Market

Northwestern Pennsylvania’s not-so-hidden-anymore gem, Edinboro Market got its start in December 2017 as most businesses do: humbly, in 900 square feet of rented space, on Erie Street that runs through the small college town in Erie County with a population of just over 5,000.

They chose nonprofit status, Martz explained, as a way to keep the focus on their mission, which is to provide year-round access to fresh, local food. Their website describes it as an entrepreneurial marketplace for local growers and producers with an understanding of the importance of both. Martz emphasized that the market defines local food as products that are made or grown within a 150-mile radius.

“We pride ourselves on being that connector between the product, the producer and the customer; you can come in and look at a cut of meat, but right above that cut of meat there is a producer profile for the farmers or the farm, along with a description of their methods: how they do what they do, and sometimes why they do it,” adding that the market also holds meet-and-greet sessions with producers.

We don’t sell large quantities like a quarter or half of an animal through the market, but we can facilitate the introduction to the farmer she said. “If you put the face and the name with the food, there is a story behind everything that comes into the market, and once you understand the story, you can appreciate the value,” she continued.

“Anything that you might buy from a bigbox grocer, you will rarely know the story behind it. But [here] you can find out what the story is, and who they are, and they live 20 miles down the road, and their kids might play soccer with your kids—we’re putting a face and a name to the food that we sell at the market.”

As a 501(c)(3) nonprofit, the market gives 75 percent of all sales back to the farmers and the producers by way of a monthly check. Since opening, Martz said, the market has sold approximately $1.7 million in products made or grown within 150 miles of Edinboro and has returned $1.2 million of that to the local economy through producer payouts and wholesale purchases.

With a network of 87 purveyors and counting, Edinboro Market is expanding its reach in more ways than one. In partnership with two likeminded businesses and two farms, a three-county aggregation and delivery project that started in 2022 now connects products between Erie, Crawford and Venango Counties.

New Location

This past March, the market moved to a 3,450-square-foot space one block away from its previous location. Located at 211 Mill Street in a newly reconceptualized, renovated and purchased building, the new market houses 1,500 square feet of retail space, 430 square feet of café/classroom space and 465 square feet of commercial kitchen space, which includes dedicated aggregation and delivery storage space, an office, a staff break room and two accessible restrooms, Martz said. Through federal grants, private donations and fund matching, the $1.3 million needed to complete the project was raised.

“In the end, it all came together,” she said.

Regarding the shared commercial kitchen space, Martz said grant funding for equipment was still pending at the time of writing. “Currently, Curtis and our new chef, Rusty Blumish, use the kitchen every day but Monday; we’re open Tuesday through Sunday,” she said. “Rusty is an amazingly talented chef who is having fun learning to cook seasonally and tapping into whatever is available locally.”

Hals, who has 20 years of restaurant experience, runs his local bakery business, Boro Sweet Spot, out of the kitchen and it’s where he concocts a variety of delicacies, including bars, cookies, cakes, scones, breads and gluten-free items, according to Martz.

Education is another key component to the market’s offerings. “In our new classroom space, we focus on education, both cooking and gardening classes, for all ages, and then business, marketing, food regulation, labeling, etc., classes for food and farm businesses,” Martz said, adding that a part-time education coordinator has also been hired through funding provided through an Erie County Gaming Revenue Authority grant, as well as partial funding for classes for individuals. Due to grant funding, only a minimal fee is charged for materials.

“Everyone should have access to information about growing food and preparing healthy meals,” Martz said.

Educational Space

The market also hosts classes for farmers and food entrepreneurs, promoted as Rooted Roundtables, in partnership with the Center for Regional Agriculture, Food and Transformation (CRAFT), part of Chatham University. The initiative is funded through a grant from the Appalachian Regional Commission for the next two years, Martz said.

At the time of writing, Cooking and Gardening 1 classes had just commenced. “We’re developing a schedule of classes for the next year; there is a fermentation series; there is a kids in the kitchen series that will happen over the summer; there is a gardening series and more,” she said.

Inspired by a chapter from Anthony Flaccavento’s book Building a Healthy Economy from the Ground Up, Martz and Hals’s journey to discover similar nonprofit market concepts led the couple to create what is now a staple both in the local community and regionally: bringing customers, purveyors, farmers and—soon—both established and up-and-coming chefs to their newly realized shared kitchen space.

Perhaps the kitchen is really the heart of the home, or in this case, the market.

“Food is the ultimate connector because we all eat, multiple times per day. People come together around food, literally and figuratively,” Martz said.

Edinboro Market’s second iteration is a destination in its own right for fresh, local, seasonally driven products—a place to tap into the local community, and a shared gathering space to commune, all by way of food.