For Earth Day, we’re releasing a three-part miniseries on sustainable farming in North Carolina. Elias Guedira ’26 and Stella Smolowitz ’26 of the Morehead-Cain Scholar Media Team traveled to Tryon (Polk County) to understand more about the food we consume and those who produce it. The two co-hosts spoke with representatives of a farmer’s market, the founder of a creamer, and Carolyn Roff Henry ’87 of Tryon Mountain Farms. In this episode, Elias and Stella sit down with Maranda Williams and Jessica Mullen of Travelers Rest Farmers Market, the executive director and director of marketing and development, respectively.
For Earth Day, we’re releasing a three-part miniseries on sustainable farming in North Carolina.
Elias Guedira ’26 and Stella Smolowitz ’26 of the Morehead-Cain Scholar Media Team traveled to Tryon (Polk County) to understand more about the food we consume and those who produce it.
The two co-hosts spoke with representatives of a farmer’s market, the founder of a creamer, and Carolyn Roff Henry ’87 of Tryon Mountain Farms.
In this episode, Elias and Stella sit down with Maranda Williams and Jessica Mullen of Travelers Rest Farmers Market, the executive director and director of marketing and development, respectively.
Special thanks
The Scholar Media Team trip (the first of its kind!) was made possible by Carolyn, who hosted the scholars for the visit. Thank you, Carolyn, for your hospitality and support!
Music credits
The intro music is by Scott Hallyburton ’22, guitarist of the band South of the Soul.
How to listen
On your mobile device, you can listen and subscribe to Catalyze on Apple Podcasts or Spotify. For any other podcast app, you can find the show using our RSS feed.
The Catalyze podcast is a series by the Morehead-Cain Foundation, home of the first merit scholarship program in the United States and located at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. The show is directed and produced by Sarah O’Carroll, Content Manager for Morehead-Cain.
You can let us know what you thought of the episode by finding us on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, or Instagram at @moreheadcain or you can email us at communications@moreheadcain.org.
(Stella)
Yeah. So we are here, it is Friday morning, and we are sitting at Carolyn’s breakfast table at Tryon Mountain Farms. And today we are here with Maranda and Jessica, and we are having a conversation over a breakfast that Carolyn so graciously made for us of eggs and sochan. You want to tell us a little bit more about sochan, Elias?
(Elias)
I hope I’m doing it justice in my description, but sochan is a traditional collard green native to the South. It was used often in Cherokee cooking, and Carolyn showed us a batch outside of her cottage before preparing it for us this morning. So we are here again with Jessica and Maranda. They both work for Travelers Rest Farmers Market. Jessica, would you mind explaining your position a little bit more?
(Jessica)
Absolutely. The Travelers Rest Farmers Market is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit, which means that we run our own market, and I am the director of marketing and development at the market, which means that I tell the story on social media, and I also work with community partners for sponsorships and things like that. So that’s what I’m up to at the market.
(Elias)
Thank you. Could you describe some of the ways that you work with Carolyn and how you go about advertising her work?
(Jessica)
I think one of the major things that we just get to do every year is list all the vendors that come to the market and put them on our website. So it’s kind of like a central list for people to be able to find out who’s there. I think Maranda, who’s also with us, is going to talk more about that later. Other things we’ve done in the past is just come for farm visits, taking photos, helping to make reels, telling people about what Carolyn is doing on the farm, showing them that this is where her syrups and salts come from when we get to visit up here. So getting to help people get connected that way is kind of what I get to do.
(Stella)
Yeah, that’s so awesome. And I think it’s really important that farmers markets are kind of like that connection between the farmers and the consumers and the people who are producing. And so I’m wondering what exactly you guys do with your farmers market to make sure that connection is easier and to really make sure that the consumers know where their food is coming from and how important it is to buy food directly from local farmers.
(Maranda)
This is Maranda, by the way. So we have a couple parameters.
(Elias)
I think we just need to turn it down a little bit. Feel free to reintroduce.
(Maranda)
Yeah, this is Maranda. So, a few parameters we have in place for the market to ensure that connection is we have a cap of a 50 mile radius, so all of our vendors are certainly very local, and we also are a producers-only market. So what that means is whoever you’re purchasing your kale or your salts and simple syrups or whatever else it might be, they are the direct producer, so they haven’t bought it, they’re not reselling. So I think that really incurs a certain responsibility from both the grower, but also between them and the community members that are purchasing their products. So they’re meeting the people, creating connection and relationship, but there’s also getting to share the story of the food, too, which I think is what really instills the longevity of those connections of, like, they’ve not only made relationships, but the person that’s done it is telling the story and they’re connecting and seeing the true value of it as well. I think we saw a lot of the importance of it, especially in 2020, when we were really able to see how fragile the food system is, walking through and seeing so many of the grocery shelves bare and open and just not able to get the things you need because it’s so outsourced and so spread out. And I think it was during that time we really saw, like, wow, it’s important that my neighbor is raising eggs, and it’s important that my neighbor has food that I can get, that I know is safe, that I know is grown with holistic practices and is a steady and stable stream to be able to depend on. So that answers that question, too. I could go on for days.
(Jessica)
And I have a thought on that as well. Maranda really got to talk about the journey to market for a lot of our products being pretty short, 50 miles, as opposed to the USDA’s definition of local is less than 400 miles, we learned recently, which is still better than some, but us getting to be 50 is really special for our organization. And then when the products get to market on Saturdays, some of the things that we do to connect the community to where their food comes from is making our space at market on Saturdays a place where people want to be, a place where they want to hang out. One thing that we like to talk about at our market is the way that it’s set up in a circle of tents as opposed to an aisle of tents. And we got to talk with a PhD who, this is kind of backwards, so we can’t really claim this, but she is a PhD who did her dissertation research in theater and this setup of space. And so she was talking to us about space setups, and one of them was called hestial space, which is meant to be more circular and more like, come around the hearth, come around the fireplace, hang out, as opposed to when you go to a grocery store, that space is not circular, it’s very much like an aisle or a chute. It’s like lines you’re supposed to go to for efficiency and get to what you need and to get out. And that’s great for what that is as well. I'm not saying all aisles are bad, but what we get to do at the market is make a space that’s circular. And so our festival lawn where we hold the market has live music playing there, and people always come in and they say, “Where is this vendor?” And we say, “Go find them in the lawn.” We do first come first served. And even that, because people can sometimes be in different places in the field, people need to go and mingle, meet other people. There’s like a cross section where you’re going to meet other people at market, you’re going to meet other vendors at market. You’re going to take some time to go and find what you need. And that’s actually a little bit less efficient, but that’s on purpose to create community places for people to sit in the field, places for kids to play in the field, places for people to enjoy the music or the food that’s there while they’re purchasing.
And so even the way that we set up our market is pretty intentional to create connection beyond just like, let me run in and grab this and leave, which you still can do and still happens. But we try to set up the market for connection that way, too.
(Elias)
And where are some places that you routinely hold farmers markets, and what does the schedule... I’m going to rephrase that question. Where are some places that you routinely hold farmers markets, and what are the schedules for pop-ups?
(Jessica)
Yeah, so our market is held at Trailblazer Park, which is another really fun story that we could talk about perhaps later in the podcast, but how the park was made kind of in conjunction with that mindset of having a farmers market there. But we held it at that park, which is just outside of downtown. But a lot of farmers markets are on Main Streets in their city so those are great for being accessible. We enjoy that. Ours is also because Trailblazer Park in Travelers Rest is right on the Swamp Rabbit Trail, which is a 30 miles, 30-something mile, 40 mile trail that goes through Greenville. And it’s a bike trail, used to be a railroad. So that’s a big thing in Travelers Rest and in Greenville, where we’re from, for tourism, but also for connection. So people who don’t have cars that day, or people who are too young or unable to have driver’s licenses, they can come to market on the trail. And so that accessibility is important to us for the food being accessible to everyone.
(Elias)
Thank you. Yeah, you did. It’s going to turn down just a tiny bit.
(Stella)
So as someone who does shop at farmers markets, not frequently, but kind of like, I don’t know, probably once a year or so when I’m home with my mom and my family, I’m wondering what tips you have to not be totally overwhelmed by how many people there are. And I totally love that it’s not something that you do in an efficient manner. I love the circle idea. I think that’s so awesome for connections and making it an experience to go to a farmers market and not just somewhere where you go to buy your produce. But I’m wondering what tips you have for maybe even someone who’s new to a farmers market? What should you do to get to know the farmers and to make sure that you’re buying the produce that’s right for you?
(Maranda)
Um, I would recommend embracing the hestial space to begin with, so it would be...
(Stella)
I think even just holding it slightly further from her. Yeah, below your usual. It’s a lot louder than you think. I want to make sure we can use your phone. No, you’re totally good. Yeah, that’s perfect. Cool.
(Maranda)
Okay. Hestial space. Yes. Thank you. I would recommend embracing a little bit of the chaos, hestial space to begin with because that is sort of the glory of it, right? It would be really efficient to run into the aisle, grab your thing, run out. But that is sort of the opposite of what we’re going for, right? It’s a very human space, so there’s a lot going on. So I would say probably take a lap, get an idea for the entire landscape of what all of your options are, and then narrow it down from there, specifically for what you’re looking for, organic, or if you want gluten-free things, if you want... whatever your dream is. But the thing is, farmers work so hard, and most of them work in isolation generally. So oftentimes, I think you’ll find that they’re more than happy to engage whatever questions you have to talk about their product, this thing that they sow into by themselves, seven days a week, this is the moment to get to have an interaction and see someone receive and someone appreciate and someone take note and listen and understand so that no one’s in a hurry. That’s the glory. So take your time, take a lap, ask questions. They’re there to tell you the story. Who knows better than them? They’re the experts. So you’ll probably find things that you weren’t looking for and learn things that you weren’t expecting.
(Jessica)
I think, in farmers market culture, it’s not weird to say, “How would you cook this? What is this? I don’t know what kohlrabi is.” They’ll be happy to tell you about it. And maybe there’s a cool story, like with the sochan greens, it’s like, this used to be eaten by Cherokee before [European] people came. It’s like, this has been here a long time, and I think that’s a really cool thing to get to do, one of the perks of farmers markets. Does that kind of make sense?
(Stella)
Yeah.
(Jessica)
So it’s not weird to ask. So just ask a vendor.
(Stella)
Yeah. That’s so awesome. You talk a lot about farmers with stories, and I think that’s really important, that farmers who are at your farmers market kind of have a story to tell about their product and about how much they’ve been working on it. So I’m wondering how the process goes and how you recruit people to the farmers market and whether you do turn people away or whether you accept everybody or what you’re looking for for your farmers market. I could totally be ignorant to that process, but I’m wondering, for someone who’s a listener, how that kind of works behind the scenes.
(Jessica)
If Maranda is crying into her breakfast now, we know why, because she’s working on this right now at the market.
(Maranda)
Yeah. You’ve caught us in application week, so bless us all. So it’s different across the map for different markets, but ours in the summer especially, is a farm- and food-forward market. So that looks like, we have to turn around or turn away some artisans, which we are... so for them, and I’m a big fan of art myself, but farms and food are the bell of the ball, if you will, May through September. So right now, we have parameters we try to hold to as much as we can: 50% farmer, 30% value-added food products, and 20% artisan. So right now, we received 140 applications for summer vendors, and so we had 35 farmers apply, and then we’ve had some more food people, and most people I’ve have had to turn away were our artisans, bless them. But I don’t think we’ve ever said no to a farmer that I can think of unless we found out that there was, like, a practice or something that wasn’t quite up to par with what our standards are. But otherwise, it’s a big yes to all farmers. But it depends on, too, like, what market you’re at. So some folks are like, well, their region can’t supply what they need, so they do bring in more artisans, and there’s nothing wrong with that.
I think that’s what’s beautiful about each market is it’s a small little vignette of what the whole community is. So just by going, it’s a little sample, and it looks like what its town looks like.
(Stella)
My question is, what is your, like, favorite farmer that you’ve met or that just really surprised you compared to their application? Or, like, what is something that you, like, have been at your farmers market, you’ve been walking around. I know you’re probably very busy when you have your Saturday farmers markets. But is there anything specific that you were surprised by or, I don’t know, something like that, that you just met a farmer and you’re like, wow, they have this awesome story, or something that you want to tell the listeners about?
(Maranda)
Well, I think the people that we’re eating breakfast with right now [Carolyn] are a good example. And I’m not just saying that because you fed us, but I was really surprised when we came to visit your farm. There’s so many people that do spice blends, et cetera. I was like, oh, my goodness, they literally grow every aspect of what they’re doing, like your garlic scapes out there and all these other obscure, random flowers plants I’ve never heard of. And you were like, “Did you know that you can take this part, dry it, and then taste like this, and then it’s this color?” And I was like, “Carolyn, you’re doing sorcery out here. This is amazing.” So I think I was just so impressed to see, truly, that you’re taking every component and doing it from the ground up as much as possible. And then I love the sort, of course, of salt coming from his native land and country. So I think that’s special.
(Elias)
And when you say his native land and country, you’re referring to New Zealand?
(Maranda)
New Zealand, yes.
(Jessica)
The salt.
(Maranda)
Yes, sorry, the salt from New Zealand being one of the pillar of most of their spice blends as well. So I love that it’s particular and special to them on a global level and a local level, as well. Most recently, though, probably with this batch of applications, I had a vendor that had applied and said he was bringing grits and cornmeal, which I already had made assumptions and was like, “Brother, we don’t do resale.” I’d said that a million times on the application and you still put it on there. So I kind of went after him, reminding him of that. He’s like, “No, I grow the corn, and our neighbor’s mill it.” And I was like, “I feel really bad now, number one. But that’s awesome.” So I think that’s one that I’m really excited about. We haven’t had grits at the market, it’s a really hard product to find locally. I’ve been approaching people on that one for a long time or trying to. So, anyway, I think as far as I’ve been excited or a surprise, that was a big one this year.
(Jessica)
I think something people may not know, what Maranda brought up about every market being a fingerprint or a microcosm of its community, so what we say for ours will be totally different from where you are, listener. You’re market is going to a lot different because your community is different. In ours, I really value that a lot of our farmers are very small. I know that 40% of our farmers farm on an acre or less. And then a lot of them are first generation farmers who are just out there YouTubing how to do something and figuring it out. A lot of them have day jobs in the off-season. They’ve kind of made choices to move towards this style of farming and this style of life. And so we love to get to support them at the market. And that’s something that I’m really passionate about, is getting to increase what the market can do to support them so that they can be stable in the thing that they’re doing. And then as the market grows, we can support other markets kind of laterally or even work to help the state Department of Agriculture at a very high level communicate to them about what local farming looks like in South Carolina right now, and they’re able to help us more.
So I love that the market gets to be kind of part of a new kind of system, whether it’s helping brand new farmers at a very day-to-day level, helping other markets to grow so that in other neighborhoods, their market can look just like their neighborhood, and helping them and their market managers as they’re growing, and then also starting to change the whole system from the top to the bottom. That’s something that is really fun getting to do that, but it’s like as simple as showing up on a Saturday, helping, supporting. It’s something that everyone can participate in, but also that you can see really big change in. So that’s not about one farmer that inspires me, but that’s something about the entire market itself that really inspires me, and something I didn’t know existed before I started working in this a couple of years ago. So I’m excited for other people to kind of get to start that journey towards understanding where their food comes from.
(Elias)
It’s really interesting hearing about how this farmers market interacts with the community and the market itself, and I was wondering what other businesses or I was wondering what other organizations occupied this niche before you all stepped in?
(Jessica)
In our area, there is another food hub that’s been kind of big for a while, the Swamp Rabbit Cafe. It’s more in Greenville. It’s a food hub, which is different than a farmers market because they can hold, they’re a retail location, and they do resale, obviously. I guess it’s more of like a grocery, the wholesale. Yeah, there’s also, pretty recently, I think something our local food system should be excited about is the Food Hub at Judson Mill. I know a lot of work has been going into that for accessibility, and also, it’s a place where farmers can take their products for processing at a higher level than they’re able to do in home. That’s like some really nice options that they have with that as well. But yeah, I think a farmers market is also amazing because if you don’t have million dollar grants or access to capital to build a whole grocery or a co-op or something, you can start a farmers market. And farmers markets can be successful with, like, five to ten vendors. Ours has a footprint of 70 right now, but that’s actually really big. That’s a really big market. And most neighborhoods don’t need a 70 foot footprint vendor. That is not, like, a mark of its success. It can be successful with, like, 5, 10, 15 vendors. That can still be something that helps that neighborhood have access to produce. So, as far as Travelers Rest, I don’t think there’s another farmers market around since we’ve been here about 15 years.
(Maranda)
There hasn’t been. I guess I would say, too, as much as we’re a niche, the market space is an ancient model. It’s always been in the square. It’s been the gathering place. It’s been where people got their goods, but it’s where news was spread. It was where acting would happen. It was like the social center. So although ours has grown into a really curated and polished version of that, I think there’s always been pop-ups along the way. I know, like, our market started, there’s a store called Sunrise Adventures in Travelers Rest, and our market, 15 years ago, was like, five tents in their back parking lot. Like, it was not curated by any means, but it was the beginnings. And you’ll go down Highway 25 between here and South Carolina, and there’s pop-ups all up and down the road, as well. So people have been doing this for always. We’ve just got it centralized into one spot, got the same color tents, and have banners and names on them now. So it’s a prettier version, but I think we’re just following the footsteps of what is very human.
(Jessica)
Tell them how Travelers Rest got its name.
(Maranda)
I love this story. Okay, so T.R. is located, like, 30 minutes off the state line between North Carolina and South Carolina. So we’re right kind of at the base of the mountains. So historically, any farmers or growers coming from North Carolina would pass through Travelers Rest going to the markets in South Carolina, whether they were going to Greenville or Charleston. And so Travelers Rest was the stagecoach stop as well. So folks would stop there to rest their herds or their flocks or just themselves for the night on their way to market. So, where I live, particularly, apparently the people that had turkeys, like, roosted them there, so there’s a lot of wild turkeys where I live, but other folks would just, it would be a place to rest. But we love that because we feel like we’re carrying on the legacy of the rendezvous, of the gathering of the vendors coming out of the mountains.
(Jessica)
That’s what they called it. It was called a rendezvous. So it’s business, but also it was like, on the way to where they were going to sell, they would be gathering together, resting together. I think of it as kind of celebratory. Maybe I’m wrong, maybe it was just sitting around the fire one night, I don’t know. But I love that that’s where Travelers Rest got its name, and that’s what we get to do today at the market. We get to kind of continue that.
(Stella)
You’ve talked a lot recently about the history of Travelers Rest, and I think that’s amazing how much history that you’re really conveying, and you’re still keeping those traditions and values from when the people would go and rest and celebrate. And that’s a very similar experience to the farmers market. And I’m wondering kind of what the future looks like for Travelers Rest. And you also talked a little bit about how success can be just five farmers or it can be your 70 footprint kind of farmers market. So I’m wondering kind of what the future looks like and how you think you’ll continue to define success, like a successful farmers market.
(Jessica)
I’ll go first, as long as Maranda promises to think about this, she’s a bit of a poet, so what she’ll come up with will be better than what I will say. But I think it’s really fun that the market has gotten to grow in tandem with the city growing. So Travelers Rest is experiencing a ton of growth right now. And I think one aspect of what we get to carry, and something that we think a lot about, is how to be a bridge for those who are already in Travelers Rest, how to maintain the culture of the city, the traditions of the city, the personality of our city, and to be a welcoming place for new people. Because when you’re a little community happening that people see on Saturdays, you become a landing place for visitors and for new residents. And we love that aspect of when someone rolls up, but in the past couple of years, it’s been a lot of people. I’m fresh in from Nevada, fresh in from California, fresh in from Pennsylvania. And you’re like, wow. We know that just anecdotally, we had visitors from 17 states and ten other countries last year, and that’s just from stories that we’ve heard. So I know that the number is greater than that. But one of our big roles for the future is maintaining authenticity to who Travelers Rest is now and being a welcome place for growth in the city. We know that our vendors were able to, through about 100 small businesses, were able to make just over $500,000 in profit this year at our market. So it’s a major impact on the local economy. But as we continue to welcome in new businesses, we’re also able to help them. Some of them will go, like, more of a wholesale route. They’ll get their stuff ready to sell in grocery stores if they want to do that. Some of them go like a storefront route. So we were able to graduate, graduate is kind of a weird term, every business is different, but graduate five vendors towards storefront locations last year, so they were at our market, and then they had made enough to be able to invest in a retail location. So we’re a really important part of the local economy, and as the city grows, we are going to grow alongside the city. As long as we can continue to work well together, the city, we have a great relationship with the city where we are.
And then secondly, as I said, being a welcoming place for new neighbors and a place to maintain the authenticity of who Travelers Rest is, is also really important socially.
So we also, I think, just got to speak to development really quick. But one thing that we’re really big on this year is growing our SNAP and EBT. We accept that at the market, and that really is really helpful for those who are currently low income to be able to have access to things that they might not be able to afford otherwise. So we’re trying to grow SNAP at the market. And as the city grows, we would love to see that grow because that directly benefits the farmers who are able to sell and the community who’s able to purchase and have access to good whole food. So that’s another way that we’re growing.
So that’s my three. Now let’s hear from the poet, a nugget of something much grander.
(Maranda)
We were having a conversation about this last week, I guess, at a board meeting, about what is our standard of success and what is the farmers market and sort of being a little bit of a countercultural movement in a lot of ways because as a nonprofit, too, like, profits and efficiency aren’t necessarily the standards we’re shooting at, per se. But what we boiled it down to essentially is that we want care over consumption, over efficiency. So that’s what I think our model really reflects now, and what I think will be if we can maintain that, that will be success to me, whether we have five farmers or 70, we’re about the people who are growing the food, the people who are consuming the food, how we’re stewarding the land that we’re using, and even the process of how these people get their beginnings. We’re basically an incubator for entrepreneurs, as well. So by nature of what we do, we’re embracing a slow and probably messy process. And we’re here for that. That’s why we’re here. We aren’t expecting something finished and polished and ready to go. We’re there to help them develop. And so whether they’re a farmer and artisan or a guy who was making bread out of his garage and now has a bakery, it’s care, which is really our culture that we want to continue to cultivate.
(Stella)
Awesome. Well, I really appreciate you guys for sitting down with us. I know this was a very informal conversation over breakfast, but I feel like our listeners are going to love it. And we really appreciate all of your insight to the farmers market.