Putnam: No more farmers at the Lansing City Market

LANSING – Low-income families seeking healthy food will have to skip the city-owned Lansing City Market, at least for now.

Once a hub offering farm-fresh produce with dozens of stalls, the market’s long progression from a farmer’s market to a touristy stop is nearly complete. It’s become a place to buy Michigan-inspired gifts, rent kayaks or grab a drink or a sandwich.

Earlier this month, the market stopped exchanging Bridge card food benefits for tokens to be spent with vendors. The Double Up Food Bucks program, which gives extra benefits if they are spent on fresh fruits and vegetables, also is no longer accepted. Families on food assistance are simply out of luck.

The change happened because the city market is now missing a key ingredient – farmers.

Audrey Tipper, market manager, said ending the token system – where benefits are processed by the market and tokens given to consumers to spend with vendors —  was a decision made by the U.S. Department of Agriculture, which administers the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program previously known as food stamps. She said the market is no longer considered a farmer’s market.

She said she found out in late July and the change went into effect Aug. 5. Last summer, the market processed $17,000 worth of food benefits, she said.

Eventually, she said, individual vendors will process the benefits. That way customers won’t have to track her down, get the tokens and then spend them, because the vendors will process them directly. Tipper knows of only one vendor, however, who is applying to accept food benefits. That’s the Landing at the City Market, previously known as Iggy’s In Convenience, which opened in December.

Iggy’s sign is still in place but Scott Simmons, the owner of the Waterfront Bar & Grill, has purchased the shop.

Tipper said she’s been telling customers individually and on social media about ending the food benefits. As of Thursday, however, the market’s website still had Bridge card and Double Up Food Bucks logos on its site.

Under Mayor Virg Bernero, the City Market took a dramatic change in direction. In 2008, the city of Lansing sold the 1938 building that once housed the market to developer Pat Gillespie and built a new market closer to the river. It opened in 2010. The Gillespie Group built the Marketplace Apartments where the old market had been.

Since moving into the new building, the market has struggled to find its identity as well as customers. Only a handful of shoppers strolled through the market Thursday morning – even as hundreds headed to the monthly, seasonal Farmers Market at the Capitol.

The latest city budget shows the taxpayer subsidy of the City Market jumping from about $54,000 last year to about $80,000 this year. Rent paid to the city for use of the facility is projected to drop from $119,000 last year to $91,000 this year. The City Market is managed by the Lansing Entertainment and Public Facilities Authority, which also manages the Lugnuts Cooley Law School Stadium and the Lansing Center.

Bonnie Falsetta, who works at the convenience store in the market, said customers with Bridge cards have been upset over the past few weeks as they came to shop for produce and other items at the convenience store. Her husband, Bob, estimates $850 in lost produce sales since the change happened.

Bob and Bonnie Falsetta have been produce vendors at the market since 1960. They closed their market in December and started working for the convenience store, where they supply produce.

“They don’t want the farmer anymore, and that’s what the city market is all about,” Bonnie Falsetta said.

With the closing of Falsetta’s market, only one longtime vendor, Hills’ Cheese, remains. A dozen vendors are listed on the market’s website.

The loss of a fresh produce option for those on food assistance is a problem. It’s an area without other options for fresh produce. And the opportunity for Lansing to have a thriving farmer’s market at the city center — an economic draw and tool for healthy food policy in many other cities — is gone.

Sadly, losing the USDA's designation is the final nail in the coffin after a long, slow death of the old farmer's market.

Judy Putnam is a columnist with the Lansing State Journal. Contact her at (517) 267-1304 or at jputnam@lsj.com. Write to her at300 S. Washington Square Suite #300 Lansing, MI, 48933. Follow her on Twitter @JudyPutnam.