Whether it’s leafy greens, seasoned pecans, or humanely raised meats, Saturday Market in Forsyth Park is Savannah’s weekly hub for local foods and independent sellers. As a vendor, getting into the city’s popular outdoor emporium can take up to three years. But through Community Cultivations Marketplace, a program managed by Forsyth Farmers’ Market, local food innovators can get a jump start on becoming a well-loved Saturday morning regular.

Now in its third year, Community Cultivations works with locals who have food-focused products or ideas they’d like to share and sell. Once a vendor has completed the program, they become a featured pop-up for one Saturday at the market’s Park Avenue entrance. This gives the emerging entrepreneur a chance to meet seasoned sellers and market goers in a trial run, akin to a kindly supported community audition.

Aja Embry, education outreach coordinator with Forsyth Farmers’ Market, heads up the program. She considers herself a grower-entrepreneur, having extensive experience cultivating trees and herbs, plus nearly a decade managing farmers’ markets in metro Atlanta. She explains that selling food-focused items, also known as value-added products, is easier than some might think. If people have an idea, Embry is there to help.

“Some people already make great things and don’t realize they are producers,” emphasized Embry. “Sometimes, we just have to show people who they are. Maybe a potential vendor doesn’t yet have a product. But say they are used to making dinners, cakes, cookies and they’ve just never put them in a clam shell, priced them and listed the ingredients. That’s part of what I help with. Community Cultivations Marketplace helps people build on things they may already be doing. Plus, once you’ve been through the program, you will be ready to solicit your products to other local stores and markets.”

To qualify, an emerging vendor must live within a 200-mile radius of Savannah, create food-based products that ideally use locally sourced ingredients, and noting hot meals, body products and crafts aren’t accepted. The seller then completes a brief online form at the Forsyth Farmers’ Market website. Embry reviews each application.

When she finds a product proposal with a decent shot at success, Embry reaches out with next steps. In recent years, locally sourced seasonings, artisan pastries, and small-batch hot sauces have been hits.

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To market, to market

But it takes more than just a great product to make it at market.

“Being a vendor entails a lot of paperwork and proper licensing,” emphasized Embry. “I also make sure new sellers have their business license and appropriate certificates. For example, if you are a farmer selling duck eggs, you need a certification for that, or if you are making jams, jellies, breads, cookies and cakes at home, you need a Cottage License for that.”

Erica Caputo, owner of The New Old-Standard Baking Company, got her start in Community Cultivations after a representative from Forsyth Farmers’ Market visited her booth at a holiday fair in November 2022. She’d been trying for a couple of years to get into Saturday Market, but after that fateful in-person exchange, Caputo and her craft pastries were swiftly placed into the entrepreneur program. Just before Christmas 2022, her baked goods debuted as that week’s pop-up feature.

“I had an awesome experience my first time as a pop-up, and that fast-tracked me to becoming a regular seller,” said Caputo. “Since the first weekend of January 2023, I’ve been selling each Saturday.”

Caputo didn’t have to make significant changes to her products, but she did need a good understanding of what would be most profitable. Her brownies, cinnamon rolls, cookies, and loaves of bread all begin with organic flour—some even include local seasonal fruits and ingredients from other vendors. Though these sell well, it’s Caputo’s hand-held treats like thick apple fritters or brioche donuts wrapped in checkered blue and white paper nestled in the happy hands of mingling patrons that tempt more customers to her booth.

“The community support in this process has been amazing,” emphasized Caputo, who is also mother to two young children. “And Aja makes it very easy for me to play around with ideas in whatever I’m creating from week to week. But this market has been a life changer. My husband has complicated health issues and has been out of work since 2020. This is now our livelihood. This market sustains our family.”

Kimberly Brown named her artisanal seasoning business after her kitchen-savvy grandmother. In the summer of 2021, Community Cultivations invited Brown to debut Stella Ruth’s Signature Seasonings as the week’s feature. Her first experience exceeded every expectation.

“I was new to the market, and I wasn’t sure how I’d be received,” confessed Brown. “And I was shocked because our booth broke the record. At the time, we were the highest grossing pop-up seller at $880 in one day. I was shocked at the support and just how kind and interested everyone was.”

Brown and her husband moved from Arizona to Savannah in 2020. Her husband, a truck driver, wanted to relocate to the city for its burgeoning shipping industry. Brown had started her business in Arizona but couldn’t get much traction, explaining there didn’t seem to be consistent support for cottage businesses like hers.

This year marks her third as regular vendor at Saturday Market, and she considers the coaching from Community Cultivations as a significant factor in her success.

“They walked me through the process, filling out paperwork and all the licensing,” said Brown. “But more than that, I learned how to market and reach out to people in the community. Forsyth Farmers’ Market does a great job marketing, especially on Facebook supporting farmers and vendors. It amazes me how people here support local business. I’ve not met not one unfriendly customer.”

In addition to vending at Saturday Market, Brown is currently wrapping up a nutrition degree at Purdue University, at the encouragement of the Market’s executive director, Dr. Deidre Grimm. Brown plans to integrate her schooling into further expanding her seasonings business.

Grimm, who has been leading the organization for almost 18 months, sees the  Community Cultivations Marketplace program as a way to connect more people with each other as well as to skills necessary for successful food product entrepreneurship.

“In 2023 profits from the market totaled 1.5 million dollars, including sales of produce, cookies, baked goods, sauces, seasoning—all vendor products,” emphasized Grimm. “What we want to do is foster a community inside of a community where vendors source from one another to create some or even all of what they sell. Saturday Market is a family. We are there every Saturday as an organization, market staff and vendors. This space is the best mentoring zone for learning, supporting and uplifting new entrepreneurs in the community. This opportunity is an eye-opening experience of what it’s like to actually be part of the market.”

For more information about Community Cultivations Marketplace program, visit the organization’s website at: forsythfarmersmarket.com/communitycultivationsmarketplace