COLUMBUS, Ohio — Farm-to-front door is the concept behind Market Wagon, a website that offers customers, like Jen Johnson, staple grocery items from local farmers.
She heard about the platform online and switched immediately. She’s been shopping with local farmers for around three years. They don’t just have your classic fruits, vegetable, and dairy products. They offer specialty items like garlic bacon and sweet corn microgreens.
For a flat $6.95 delivery fee, customers can order one or 100 items. Almost all the items come from farms throughout Ohio, but a few come from regional states. Customers have direct access to all the farms and can ask questions or request specialty items. Johnson says she’s found a new comfort in knowing where her food comes from.
“It’s good to understand where our food comes from and what it’s made,” said Johnson. “We are just more in tune with what we’re supposed to be eating. I feel a lot healthier since switching to market wagon.”
Health and wellness are at the top of Johnson’s list. Before shopping through Market Wagon, Johnson was an avid shopper at big box stores. Johnson has already had an interest in nature and food. Shopping more local, she is afforded the privilege and knowledge of ingredient lists and processing processes. The knowledge has pushed her to become more creative in the kitchen.
She likes to ferment the sweet corn microgreens and use them on rice and steak for hibachi-inspired meals. She said before switching to Market Wagon, she thought she had to eliminate milk from her diet, but the website offers helpful alternatives she wasn’t able to find at the big box stores.
“I noticed that regular milk gave me an upset stomach, and I saw that Market Wagon had A2A2 milk,” said Johnson. “I tried that out and it helped tremendously.”
Smaller farms are usually family-run and owned, giving them the advantage over big box stores that are currently facing supply chain and staffing issues. Farmers like Jackie Bickle of New Horizon farms say they have quadrupled their profits since getting rid of the middleman and delivering directly to the customer. They can set their own prices and be able to offer a wider variety of items to reduce food waste.
Johnson says she uses things like chicken feet to add flavor to soups and stews. Using Market Wagon, there might be some items that are harder to come by, but Johnson says farmers are flexible and really help you check off your entire grocery list.
“If something is out of stock, they let me know ahead of time and a lot of time, they can just replace the item with something else, so it’s been really easy,” said Johnson.
Every Tuesday and Thursday, over 80 farms ship their products to homes across central Ohio.