Searching for Your Local Food Source
Do you care where your food comes from? Who grew it? Who raised it? Are they local?
Plenty of us who ask these questions gladly frequent farmers markets and farm stands all season long. But what happens when the frost sets in and the outdoor markets close for the winter?
Obviously, walking into a national big-box chain store and asking the grocery manager about their sourcing rarely gets you anywhere. Even if they point out a country of origin, they certainly cannot name the family that grew or raised the food. You might get slightly better results at a regional supermarket chain, but even then, the answers rarely give you that warm, fuzzy feeling of local connection.
Fortunately, the Appalachian Highlands region features an abundance of small, fresh food markets. Some try incredibly hard to source as locally as possible, and some hit that goal better than others. Recently, we visited one very special store in historic Jonesborough, Tennessee. This store features its sourcing so well that signs next to the products tell you not just the region of origin, but also the specific farm where the crops were grown and the animals raised.
If you want a true, year-round farm stop, welcome to the Boone Street Market.
A Virtual Roster of Familiar Local Farmers
Boone Street Market focuses entirely on locally grown produce and pasture-raised meats. If you regularly attend farmers markets in the area, walking through the doors of this beautifully renovated former Exxon station feels like a homecoming. The shelves display a virtual roster of familiar farmers—people well-known and loved throughout the region.
You immediately spot names like Fermenti out of Marshall, NC (perfect for your kimchi fix), Three Sisters Conserves from Chuckey, TN, Heritage Virginia Mills in Nickelsville, VA, Ashe County Cheese from West Jefferson, NC, Serenity Now Homestead of Chuckey, TN, and Doe River Fungi out of Valley Forge, TN.
We associate these names with actual people—the folks we shake hands with and buy from on clear Saturday mornings. The store has an extensive inventory of items from regional vendors. Whether you want fresh-baked goods, jams and jellies, fiery salsas, custom spices, or local beef, pork, chicken, and bison, you will find it all right here.
The Producer-Only Promise for Local Excellence
To understand how this local food oasis came to be, we sat down with Deborah Byrd, the Executive Director of Jonesborough Locally Grown. This 501©(3) nonprofit operates both the Jonesborough Farmers Market and Boone Street Market.
According to Byrd, the founders planted the roots of the store back in 2008 when they launched the outdoor farmers market out of a desire for absolute transparency.
“One of the initial vendors who got it started had been in another regional market and noticed that someone in a booth next to her basically resold a lot of grocery store produce,” Byrd explained. “That frustrated her deeply. So, she decided she wanted to create her own market and make it producer-only.”
That producer-only rule remains the golden standard for both the outdoor market and the brick-and-mortar store today. “Everyone—the meat producers, the produce vendors, the crafts—everyone you see here plays a direct role in producing, growing, or raising what they sell,” Byrd said.
Expanding the Local Food Season
When the outdoor market proved to be a massive success, the community sought a way to sustain the momentum through the winter. After experimenting with an online winter market, the founders—driven heavily by passionate community volunteers—opened the doors to Boone Street Market in October 2014.
“Boone Street Market essentially operates as a farm stop,” Byrd noted. “It functions as a brick-and-mortar, year-round, indoor farmers market. We open six days a week, and a lot of the vendors from the farmers market also bring their products here for us to sell on consignment.”
While the outdoor market enforces a strict 100-mile sourcing radius, the Boone Street Market occasionally widens that footprint to 150 miles. This wider radius brings a bit more variety to the shelves, though the team keeps the focus intensely local.
More Than Just a Local Grocery Store
Boone Street Market operates as a true community hub. They do much more than simply sell groceries:
• Farmer-First Economics: The market strictly insists that local farmers and food artisans receive at least 75% of the shelf price for their direct-to-consumer goods.
• In-House Commercial Kitchen: The facility houses a commercial kitchen where staff teach educational cooking classes and produce value-added foods. An in-house chef also crafts weekly “Grab and Go” meals using fresh seasonal ingredients straight from the market’s inventory.
• Food Access Programs: To make fresh, local food accessible to the wider community, the market accepts SNAP-EBT and participates in the Double Up Food Bucks program. This program matches SNAP dollars up to $20 for fresh fruits, vegetables, mushrooms, and herbs.
• Convenient Ordering: For customers on the go, the market supplies a comprehensive online ordering system for curbside or in-store pickup.
Conclusion
If you seriously want to know your food’s origins and ensure that caring people produce it locally, you will not find a better destination than the Boone Street Market.
This beautiful little shop gives off a super pleasant vibe. The staff expertly arrange the shelves and, most importantly, stock farm products sourced directly from the fields, pastures, and kitchens of our neighbors.
Make sure you stop in. You will love it.
Plan Your Visit:
• Location: 101 Boone Street, Jonesborough, TN
• Hours: Monday – Friday: 10:00 a.m. – 6:00 p.m. | Saturday: 9:00 a.m. – 5:00 p.m. | Sunday: Closed
