July 2009 Archives

The CentreView newspaper ran a great article about our market at Trinity Center in Centreville, which runs from 3:30–6:30 p.m. every Friday. With our shoppers talking about what they buy at the market, the article really shows the variety of foods and goods our vendors offer.

On a recent Friday, Danielle and Rich Endler of Centreville’s Stonehenge community shopped at the Centreville market for the first time. They bought kettle corn, zucchini, squash, onions, beans “and a whole bunch of meat,” said Rich. “We got bratwurst, marinated pork steaks, bologna loaf and a Hawaiian sausage — dinner for a week. We’ll definitely come back again; it’s local and the same prices as the supermarkets — and here, you know where it comes from.”

Choosing green beans from a large array, Joanne Beale of Centreville’s Xanadu Estates community was delighted with the fresh produce. Her husband Skip, meanwhile, bought a bottle of raspberry Merlot dessert wine. Said Beale: “We had it at Red Rock Canyon recently and loved it.”

Geoff and Leslie Howard of Sully Station came to the market for their second time. “We’re going to get our entire dinner here,” said Geoff.

Read the full article here, and come out to the market this Friday!

Hello fans: I saw the following story on the news the other night and realized that one of my own goals for our markets would be much easier to accomplish if there were more businesses out there like Safeway who are actually committed to lowering their own and their employees’ health care costs by facilitating preventive health practices through work-place incentives.

We provide such businesses, both small and large a perfect venue for promoting a healthier life-style and in conjunction them we could also increase our educational programming as well. For people who are so accustomed to dining out it can be a real revelation to learn how quickly, simply and cheaply they can prepare their own meals at home - while getting healthier and saving money on health care. And we could help them learn this right at the market.

We could be working with businesses to improve the health of their employees and to help them save money too by lowering their insurance costs across the board - or just for employees who sign up for the incentive program.

I would love some feedback on this subject. I am open to ideas for specific programming and also to partnership arrangements which could further shared goals. We would also be happy to organize and/or host a forum to encourage more discussion and to plan a series of consciousness-raising events for employers and employees.

I will continue to work on this and will let you know where it leads.

See you at the markets! Jean

Smart Markets and Tommy V, who sells his homemade salsa at several of our markets, did indeed appear on the NBC Nightly News tonight. Here’s the clip!

Smart Markets is on Facebook! We have individual pages for each of our markets — become a fan of each Smart Market you visit and stay on top of the latest news. We’ll be adding to each page over time to include more updates and features. In the meantime, use the pages to get in touch with us and your fellow shoppers.

Here are the pages:

• Smart Markets at Fairfax Corner
• Smart Markets at George Mason University
• Smart Markets at Reston Town Center
• Smart Markets at Centreville
• Smart Markets at Oakton
• Smart Markets at Purcellville

And while you’re at it, follow us on Twitter. OK, you’ll see we haven’t done much with it yet. But we’re starting to use it more, so don’t miss out.

At Smart Markets, we believe that all of our vendors are stars in their respective fields, both literally and figuratively, but this week one of our number will hit the big time!

Tommy Venable of Tommy V’s Salsa (with a lilt) will be featured in a story on the NBC Nightly News; the national news, that is. Being the marketing fiend that he is, he sent out press releases to nearly every news outlet on the Eastern seaboard, and some perspicacious employee at the NBC network offices in New York saw a story in the making.

Please tune in on Monday night the 13th of July to your NBC station to watch the cameras follow him throughout a day of making and packaging his fantastic fresh salsa and then setting up and selling at the Smart Markets in Reston.

We knew there was a reason we remain flexible in our recruiting and assignment of vendors throughout the year, even as other markets adhere to a rigid deadline and refuse to add to their markets once they open for the season. My view has always been: Why turn away a vendor who could improve your market and for whom you could provide a timely boost to their small-business dream? Never made sense to me — and even before he became famous, I knew we had done the right thing.

Tommy is a great guy with lots of creative ambition and targeted drive, and we are so happy for him. Please join us in watching his story on Monday night or on the NBC website. (We will post a link to it when it goes online.) For Tommy, we hope that the fallout is all good.