Community Corner

Farm Fresh and Local Food the Key to Westwood Farmer's Market

n two years, the Westwood Farmer's Market has grown and includes several different vendors selling produce, poultry, pastries, bread and seafood.

Written by Susan Manning.

Looking for a way to support local agriculture? Westwood Farmers Market offers an opportunity to do that with its wide variety of fresh fruits, poultry, pastries, and vegetables.

The Westwood Farmers' Market is held on Tuesdays (including today) from 1 p.m. to 6 p.m. at the Westwood Senior Center, 60 Nahatan Street. 

The market is in its second year, and market coordinator Shirley Robbins, said so far, it’s been successful. Robbins used to be in the corporate world, being a banker, but she said she was sick of it. After having rented a farm for quite awhile, she said, she decided to buy it. 

Robbins’ Paradise Hill Farm, out of Westport, Mass., offers a wide variety of vegetables, from corn, to lettuce, peppers, cucumbers, squash, beets, peaches, radishes, and tomatoes among other various produce. 

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Robbins said she used to go to the Norwood Farmers’ Market for 18 years but because of some differences, she said, she decided to coordinate a market in Westwood. She was among several other vendors at the market who followed her from Norwood to Westwood.

Jessica King was working at the market for E.L. Silvia Farms from Dighton, Mass. “I grew up on the farm,” King said. King, a close family friend of the farm’s owners, said she decided to help out. King said she believes fresh food, like the produce she was selling at the market, is the best.

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“It will make you live longer,” she said.

Fresh produce wasn’t the only thing being sold at the market. Katie Bruce, from Copicut Farm in Fairhaven, Conn. was on hand to help sell her farm’s poultry and eggs. 

“This is our first season at this market,” she said. “Copicut is a new farm and we’re in our first couple months.” Bruce said a farmer’s market is an ideal setting to support local economy, in addition to getting fresher foods.

“The quality of our poultry is better. It has a better color and texture. We have free range poultry that is hand-butchered on site,” Bruce explained.

In addition to poultry, pastries, bread, and even seafood were available for customers. Patrick Jordan, the son of the owners of Jordan Bros., based out of Brockton, Mass. was helping sell seafood.

“We’re in the process of expanding with different consumers,” Jordan said. “The seafood is caught on a daily basis. Most of the stuff we have here today was caught today, straight from the boat.” The Jordan Bros. have been coming to the market for the past two years.

Customer and Westwood resident Kathy Orcutt echoed the sentiments of the market’s vendors. “I love farm fresh vegetables, I love to support individual farms, and the food just tastes better,” she said.


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