Online locally-sourced farmers market adapts to COVID, thrives

Paula and Chris Sandberg, along with six of their daughters, (front row from left: Emma, Olivia, and Alice; back row from left: Abby, Aimee, and Alaina) hosted a ribbon-cutting and announced that the online farmer’s market business is expanding to other communities throughout Nebraska and will be known as Heritage Local Co.

Shary Skiles/McCook Gazette

McCOOK, Neb. – McCook chamber honored Heritage Acres at a ribbon cutting held at McCook Christian Church on Thursday afternoon. Owner Paula Sandberg announced to the gathering that the farmer’s market portion of Heritage Acres will become Heritage Local Co and will be expanding to serve other communities in 2022.

The business is an online farmer’s market started approximately two years ago. She said that when COVID hit, they were already doing egg sales online every week. But then, consumers began to get nervous about where their food was coming from, and they saw a big increase in demand for their beef products. “We sold out of beef on our little website for an entire year in 24 hours after we put it up,” Paula said.

So she decided to ask other producers if they wanted to join the family operation in selling their products online for delivery each week. Working out of the back of two vehicles, the operation grew. Winning the Hormel Business Competition in 2021 helped infuse some capital investment into the business.

The online platform allows consumers to “shop” weekly for locally sourced produce, meat, eggs, and artisan goods beginning on Friday through Tuesday night. Vendors have already uploaded the product they will have available. Sales close at midnight on Tuesday, and then consumers can pick up their order on Thursday afternoon at the McCook Christian parking lot. And then the cycle starts all over again. Paula said there would be about 42 weeks in the 2022 season.

It has many advantages for vendors, Paula said, because they don’t have to guess about how much product to load up and bring to market, they don’t have to waste a whole Saturday waiting for customers in a hot parking lot, and they are able to keep perishable products in the proper environment until they are sold.

Another advantage is that it extends the season, as traditional farmer’s markets usually only last from about June through September.

Paula said the decision to expand came in part because of the tremendous support they have had in Southwest Nebraska.

They plan to expand across Nebraska and build really resilient local food networks in each community that they will serve.

“If we hadn’t had so much support, we probably would have stopped by now,” Paula said. “Everybody knows that building a business is hard.”

Orders can be placed online at heritageacres.net