Iowa City Today

It is perhaps fitting that a region so identified with farming would introduce a unique concept during the COVID-19 shutdown – an online farmer’s market for pickup and delivery of produce.

“The way that we see this happening is that people place their orders online and they’ll be given an order number,” Iowa City Farmer's Market coordinator Tammy Neumann told Little Village. “Staff and volunteers will fill those orders, putting items into a box with that number on — although anything that’s frozen or has to be kept cold will be kept separately until it is picked up.”  

A market customer drives into a parking ramp and hands a worker an order number.

“We’ll find it (order) and then ask them to pop open their trunk,” Neumann said. “Or, we’ll put in their back seat or hand it to them through the window, whichever works best so there’s the least amount of contact as possible.”

According to Little Village the drive-thru pick-ups will be done once a week on Saturdays.

“Exact hours haven’t been established yet, but vendors will be delivering their goods in the morning, so pick-ups will be later in the day,” the report said.

The ordering is done on a website, www.fieldtofamily.org.

Neumann said invitations to participate in the online market were sent to farmer's market vendors.

The idea for a drive-thru service originally began as a way to offer people fresh produce and to help local farmers during the pandemic, which has shut down traditional open-air markets. Plans call for the drive-thru service to continue even after in-person buying resumes.

“It would give these vendors another outlet to sell their products,” Neumann said. She added it would also provide an option for people still apprehensive about public gatherings.

The report said Field to Family is working with vendors to write descriptions of their products for the online market.