This year at the Clear Lake Farmers Market we are fortunate enough to have a variety of meat and eggs available. Several of our vendors offer farm fresh eggs and duck eggs are available every other week. Whole chickens can also be preordered. We have 4 producers this year who offer cuts of either grass fed or corn fed beef and 2 of those also offer custom processed pork by the whole or half. To see which vendors will be at market with meat and eggs each week you can visit our website where we have an interactive market directory: www.clearlakefarmersmarket.
One of the goals of the CLFM Board this year was to increase the availability of local meat offered at market and to make it easier for those producers to bring their products to our market.
Why is local meat harder to find at a farmers market? By the time you see the smiling face of a meat producer at our farmers market they have spent many hours raising, feeding, worrying over and caring for their animals, finding a state inspected processor, appropriate insurance, and applying for licenses to store, transport and sell their meat. They have purchased animals, feed, fencing, freezers, trailers and many other supplies. Making it to the point of being able to sell at a farmers market is an accomplishment to say the least.
Why should you purchase meat from a local producer at farmers market? The biggest advantage is that you get to look at the person who raised that meat and ask them any question you’d like about how the animal was raised, what it was fed and how it was processed. Like what you buy from them at market? You may want to contact them about purchasing a whole, half or quarter animal, custom processed to your own specifications.
