FarmieMarket, Sarah Gordon
Sarah Avery Gordon is the founder of FarmieMarket, the Capital Region’s online farmers’ market. In 2009, she began marketing her family’s grass-fed beef on the internet using more traditional marketing venues and was surprised by the positive increase in sales that she and her family experienced.
In 2010 Sarah organized the Heldeberg Market, helping several of her farming friends from the Heldeberg Hilltowns market their goods through a central website hosting her first online farmers’ market. Her goal was to increase profits for small farms that had limited marketing resources and skills.
Heldeberg Market catalogs fresh weekly inventories from small farms so that Albany County customers can go online, shop, check out with their credit card and receive home delivery of their farm fresh goods. In 2011, Sarah increased the scale of her operation again, launching two more online farmers’ markets under the central brand, FarmieMarket. Turning Point Market began serving Saratoga County in July 2011, and simultaneously Uncle Sam’s Farmer Stand started serving Rensselaer County; Heldeberg Market was also expanded to serve Schenectady County.
Customers all over the Capital Region can visit FarmieMarket.com, click on their location, and shop for local produce, meats, eggs and more from the farms that are most local to them. Currently, Sarah is coordinating marketing activities for twenty small farms throughout the Capital Region and making deliveries to customers’ doors three days a week in four counties.