Our Vision for Downtown Orlando Farmers Market

The Daily City's vision for Downtown Orlando Farmers Market

By Mark Baratelli
407-308-1417

The Daily City submitted a proposal this year to become the Market Manager of the Downtown Orlando Farmers Market. The selected company decides on market layout, vendor selection, market advertising and more. With 6 years of doing our food truck events under our belt, we took a shot. We were not selected. However, some of our ideas were praised by the selection committee and even mentioned when discussing other companies. We want to share some key points in our proposal. We hope it shows that we thought very hard about this market and have a deep passion for making it better.

State of the Market:

The same vendors are there every week. There’s no sense of discovery.
It’s a craft market, not a farmers market.
There is no dedicated structure for the market.
The playground is a destination. The swan boat rental dock is a destination. The market is what you walk through to GET to those destinations.
The shade is taken up by vendors.
Not many people sit and relax.
Audubon Park Market only allows local/regional growers. Winter Park Market offers local, hydroponic and yard farm-harvested produce vendors. Winter Garden Market won first place in every category in the 2016 American Farmland Trust farmers market contest. Orlando has two produce vendors and won 2nd in some of those categories.

Vision:
Our vision for the market is a total focus on food: no bath bombs, incense or aprons. This is not Fiesta in the Park. This is food. 100% of the market will be food: grab & go, produce, meats, breads, seafood, baked goods, other food-maker goods. This does not include seasoning packets and dried fruits with non-US origins like the market currently has. We will welcome crafting, vintage and other non-food vendors, but those will be presented as special events, not the main one.

Vendor Selection:

All food vendors. Period.
Vendors put on rotation. Guests will find the consistency of staple necessities like local produce, meats, milks, waters and sundries and also discover new experiences and brands.
Vendors receive their rotation schedule 6 months ahead of time.
One category can have several vendors within it. For example, we can have 4 bread vendors. This lets the guests choose.
Banned categories will be presented in the form of festivals once a month.
No Vendor waiting list. Either yes or no. No waiting.
Rotation of regional and local breweries selling the beer

Policy Changes:

Recycling cans everywhere
No styrofoam or plastic bags allowed
All vendors must accept credit cards

Put the Guests in the Shade:

Problem - The market takes up all the shady areas with tents.
Solution - Put the guests in the shade. Give them chairs purchased by DDB and set up/broken down by the Clean Team, reading material through a partnership with the Orlando Public Library with the rolling bookshelves paid for by DDB.

Guests in the shade in the area we'd call the Reading Room due to provided reading material from the Orlando Public Library. The chairs and tables are paid for by Downtown Development Board and set up and broken down by the Clean Team.

The Reading Room extends only to the edges of the tree shade in warmer months. This is the most beautiful area of the market. Orlando is sorely lacking in mature trees. Placing guests beneath several will give them a chance to really engage with and enjoy them.

Vision Board for the Reading Room. Think Bryant Park in NYC. Cafe chairs and tables easy to carry and move, reading materials in rolling carts, children's play area.

Organize this Mess

Problem - The market's current layout is a mish/mash hodge/podge of criss-crossing sidewalks that force guests to jut and jab around the market.
Solution - Congregate the tents together to form a destination so guests can visually and obviously understand the location and traffic flow.

This tent layout gives guests a visual destination. This, unlike the current layout, tells you where the market begins and ends. Vendors are *never* placed facing each other. Only one side of each aisle has vendors. Tent design and color will be identical.

This is "Grab & Go Alley," where ready made food is sold. Food trucks will be used in addition to tent food vendors. Guests will take their food to the Reading Room and it there.

The market experience is the advertising

Free bottled water in the reading room for guests
Free branded picnic blankets
Free chalk for kids
Free chess, checkers and game tables.
Free branded professionally printed cardboard fans
Free branded tote bags and t-shirts for guests
Free classes and workshops organized & taught by area groups

The Market's Experts are Ignored
What the City has done to the Clean Team employees is a disgrace. They’re an asset to the market. No one knows more about that market than the Clean Team. The City has hidden these valuable people from public view, wrapping them in orange construction safety vests (entirely out of place at a farmers market) and in shirts with logos so tiny guests cannot read them. And who even knows what the words "Clean Team" even means?

The on-property Market Team will be comprised of what’s going to be formerly known as the Clean Team.
Guests will look to these City employees as the Market Team.
The team will be given new t-shirts, baseball caps displaying the (new) market logo and the words “Ask Me Questions.”
The Market Team member will answer questions in one of two ways: based on the knowledge they’ve amassed or by getting the answer from the Market Manager via cell phone.
The Market Team will be managed by the City. The Market Manager will give the City a list of duties and the City will give these to the Market Team.

About Producing LLC
Producing LLC has assembled teams to execute the following:

This RFP requires 50 markets a year. Baratelli was responsible for 178 Bazaars in 2016, 195 Bazaars in 2015 and 202 Bazaars in 2014. The Market happens in the same city at the same venue. Each of Baratelli’s Bazaars happens in different cities at different venues all over Central Florida. Each venue has its own set of constraints, city employees and local politics.

Mark Baratelli was inducted into Orlando Sentinel's prestigious Culinary Hall of Fame and named one of Orlando Business Journal's 40 Under 40.