When several farmers and vendors decided to move our market to a more desirable location, I’m sure it was assumed our nonexistent relationship with the Kansas City Health Department (KCHD) would continue. In the three years we had sold at that location we had seen the health department once, and that time they checked our labels and left.

By moving to a highly visible site on the parking lot of a city charter school we popped onto the radar screen of several city offices. Well ahead of our April opening date I began communicating with the KCHD and felt quite confident that we would be selling our prepared foods and baked goods as in previous years.

First of all I was told that in order to sell temperature-sensitive foods that were kept in coolers with blue ice packs and serve our baked items the city would have to inspect us weekly. So we would have to apply each week for a temporary permit and pay a $50 weekly fee. $50! Quickly calculating I realized that the proceeds from our weekly batch of salsa would go just to pay the permit.

I explained to the KCHD that this fee was prohibitive on top of booth fees and high gas expenses. The inspector and I went over the products to be offered including: pesto, hummus, spreads, dressings, and baked goods. It was suggested that we apply for a mobile unit permit and rig up a fridge on a trailer, which without electricity on site was impossible – but a mobile unit permit was $165 for the entire year as opposed to $1300.

While pondering this fridge on a trailer idea it dawned on me that we had a mobile propane fridge – in our motor home. The KCHD agreed that it could be permitted. I understood that having the refrigerator to keep our prepared food cool satisfied the requirements. So I drove it into town and had it inspected and permitted. We were go for market opening.

Heading in that morning for the opening day of market the motor home was crammed full of baskets, coolers, tables, e-z up tents, totes and all the other necessities for market. Our enthusiasm was high for our new market and a great day was anticipated. At 8:10 a.m. the health department supervisor arrived, complete with clipboard, and blocked the entry into our booth. I couldn’t image what she was doing. Little did I know she couldn’t imagine what we were doing. It turns out that a mobile unit permit meant that the food was kept inside the “unit” and sold through a window, like a hot dog vendor on the street.

We have no trucks on our market lot. All our vendors use white e-z up tents and the displays are very attractive. There was no way we were going to pass food through the window of our motor home. The supervisor explained that our only alternative was the weekly temporary permit (and $50). She did allow us to finish out the day as we were set up, customers were finally allowed in, and money began flowing.
While telling a friend about the morning’s problems, I said that I thought we needed to take the issue to the mayor. A customer turned around and said she was a good friend of the mayor and could she help. What timing! We exchanged contact information and we finished the day with our low spirits slightly elevated (in spite of a downpour).

Phone calls and email was fast and furious that week and I was finally put in contact with the mayor’s “right-hand woman”, who turned out to also be a customer of the market and a real supporter. She indicated that she would “see what she could do to help”.

During all this time I was very careful not to criticize the health department because I knew they were only following the rules and I felt it was the rules that needed correction. The temporary permit was ridiculous, we weren’t temporary, we were at the exact same location every Saturday morning for 26 weeks and this was my point.

Thursday of that week I received a phone call from a very nice man who was the Program Manager for the Food Protection Program in the Kansas City Health Department. He asked what the problem was and we discussed the situation. He quickly realized that the big obstacle for us was the $50 weekly fee. He said there was a nonprofit category that allowed a two-week permit for $25, were we a nonprofit? We weren’t.
This was a new market and the entire winter had been spent just getting the basic market established and our intention was to begin the nonprofit application this coming fall. But we had applied for a small grant and the Kansas Rural Center had offered to act as our fiscal agent until we were established as a nonprofit. I explained this and I could hear his relief through the phone. We could be considered nonprofit if the Kansas Rural Center would fax the KCHD their information. Our fee, along with all of the other vendors with temperature-sensitive foods and the chefs who provided cooking demonstrations weekly, would be reduced to $12.50 a week.

I would imagine he had been asked by the mayor’s office to please straighten this out (and get this woman off their backs). So he was quite pleased to have this situation resolved so easily. The health department has continued to be very accommodating. Our chefs do have to apply for a permit prior to their demonstrations but since they all work with the health department anyway they haven’t minded the extra paperwork. Our meat vendors and other prepared food people have had no problems with the health department. We are inspected weekly and the permit can be paid in larger amounts to avoid sending in weekly checks. A blank permit is on file and our inspector just photocopies it every week for us. The market is running smoothly and our vendors and chefs are happy.

I also believe that had those phone calls and email not happened we still would have been faced with a $50 weekly permit. It is my intention, this winter, to propose to the health department a new permit structure that allows for farmers’ markets that are semi-permanent. In the meantime I can’t emphasize enough the idea that battling bureaucrats won’t get you anywhere but deeper in a hole.

Value-added quickie: We’ve always sold our garlic scapes as a produce item, telling customers to chop them up and sauté them in olive oil (isn’t that the answer for everything?). But there is a limit to how many scapes you can sell and lots always go to the chickens. This year as I brought down the scapes from the field I just kept thinking there must be something customers could do besides eat them because they were so pretty and graceful. I selected the longer ones and stuck a huge bunch in a bucket with water leaving the smaller ones to sell for sautéing. I put the bucket on the edge of the table where customers enter the booth. One of the very first customers that day went nuts over them and asked how much they were. She wanted them for arrangements. I hadn’t even figured that out yet but I quickly ventured $1 a “stem”. She took $20 worth! Customers began coming in just to get “those curly things” and I sold out fast. There is only about a two-week life to these because they start straightening out unless you keep them in a cooler but it certainly added value to something I would have ended up throwing to the chickens.