For new leader of Grand Strand farmers markets, quality trumps quantity

Don’t expect to see more farmers markets along the Grand Strand.

At least not from the Waccamaw Market Cooperative.

But at the seven sites run by the cooperative, look for more vendors, a better produce selection and live entertainment.

That’s the vision of Samantha Tipton, the cooperative’s first executive director.

“We’re not looking to be necessarily in every town or every city in this region,” said Tipton, 29, who has been on the job nearly a month. “We’re looking to make really good markets … where you can do other things when you’re there than just buy produce.”

So what “other things” might visitors enjoy?

Tipton plans to bring in local bands or individual musicians to perform at the weekly markets. Canning or cooking demonstrations are also on her agenda, as well as fitness classes.

“It’s an experience,” she said. “It’s not just like going to the supermarket.”

Tipton previously managed a small farmers market in Dothan, Alabama. She moved to Georgetown County in April and learned about the executive director’s job while searching the cooperative’s website for the location of the Pawleys Island Farmers Market.

“I was reading the description,” she said. “I kept thinking, ‘I could do this.’”

Tipton did not grow up on a farm — she hails from tiny Sparta, Tennessee — and her educational background is in housing, design and community planning.

But as a graduate student at Auburn University, she began changing her eating habits.

“Like every other college student, I was the biggest fast food junkie you could have imagined,” she said. “You realize, the older you get, the kind of toll that has on your body.”

Instead of Taco Bell quesadillas with extra sauce, she began eating fresh berries, vegetables and other healthier fare.

“It makes such a significant difference,” she said. “You just naturally have more energy. I mean, how sluggish do you feel after you have, like, fried chicken for lunch? You want to take a nap at your desk.”

In 2012, she began working with the Poplar Head Farmers Market in Dothan. It was there that she learned the ins and outs of managing a market. She also began to appreciate the qualities of locally-grown produce.

“It’s not traveling on a truck hundreds of miles to get here,” she said. “It’s not picked before it’s ripe. … It’s picked when it’s ready to eat and that’s how you’re eating it. So you’re really getting the food at the freshest possible time you can when you get it from somewhere like this.”

Despite her experience, the new job has been an adjustment. Tipton is responsible for working with local governments and private landowners on reserving market locations. She handles all promotions and social media. And, of course, she works with vendors. She dealt with 25 farmers at her last job. Here, she has about 60.

“This is a big difference,” she said.

Yet so far, things are going well. She said the local farmers have welcomed her, as have the three part-time market managers.

“Everybody really likes her,” said David Vail, one of the market managers.

Having an executive director, Vail said, means he’s now free to focus on helping farmers set up and take down their booths. He can handle the on-site issues while Tipton deals with the off-site ones.

“It’s awesome,” he said. “She’s now doing everything I was asked to do. I love it.”

Tipton’s hiring also marks a new milestone for the cooperative. After relying on Clemson Extension Service to help run the program for seven years, the nonprofit has grown to the point that its membership can support a full-time leader.

“We are thrilled to bring Samantha’s experience to bear on the market program in our region,” said Blake Lanford, a Clemson Extension agent. “As a convening point for food producers and consumers, markets play a key role in the development of the local food system.”

The cooperative began with a single market in Conway in 2008. In recent years, the program has expanded, establishing a market in Carolina Forest last year and adding destinations in Pawleys Island, Georgetown and The Market Common this spring.

Along with the new locations, cooperative leaders are working on plans for a mega farmers market in downtown Conway. City officials have allocated $250,000 for an open-air pavilion and park on the corner of Laurel Street and Second Avenue. An old police station was razed to make room for the new facility.

Tipton said the cooperative is working with some Clemson University architecture students to develop plans for the pavilion. The Conway market holds special significance for the nonprofit.

“That is our main location,” she said. “That will always be our home.”

Tipton would also like to see the program purchase a food truck to offer mobile markets. Eventually, she hopes to set up a commercial kitchen.

“If we were to have a commercial kitchen, then people could take their produce to it, be able to can their goods or make their products and then sell it at the market,” she said. “The way the regulations are right now, they have to have a commercial kitchen to do that.”

While she has big plans for next year, Tipton pointed out that most of the markets will be open through October.

“We still have a couple months of the season,” she said. “Summer’s coming to an end, but your food’s still growing. … I want get events done before then.”

But are the cooperative’s expansion days over?

“If somebody came to us and wanted us to start another market, I think it would definitely be an idea we could explore,” she said. “But, really, we want to focus on these seven markets.”

This story was originally published September 6, 2015 at 1:59 PM with the headline "For new leader of Grand Strand farmers markets, quality trumps quantity."