How two Westchester moms built an online farmers market

By AMY SOWDER

Jessica Jarrett, left, and Shannon Nitti, founders of Farmstand Society. CONTRIBUTED PHOTO

Every Monday, when the orders start piling up for packing, Shannon Nitti takes a photo. Farmers are dropping off cucumbers and tomatillos, bakers are hauling in trays of sourdough, and vendors’ children are running around underfoot.

“That’s probably my favorite day of the market, seeing everyone coming together,” said Nitti, who co-founded an online farmer’s market with Jessica Jarrett. Called Farmstand Society and launched in early May, Jarrett and Nitti deliver to doorsteps within a 40-mile radius of Brewster, including all of Westchester.

Every Friday at 7 p.m., a new market opens online. By Sunday at 7 p.m., it closes. In between is a 48-hour window where customers fill a virtual cart with whatever a rotating list of local farmers, bakers and makers has to offer that week. Much of it is in limited batches, so once something sells out, it’s gone until the following Friday.

T

hen the real work starts. On Monday and Tuesday, farmers are picking, bakers are pulling trays from ovens, and a chef is inspecting the wholesale seafood in Hunts Point before sunrise, all preparing orders that already have a customer’s name attached. By Wednesday afternoon, all of it is sitting on a doorstep; cold items packed in bags with ice packs and kept in coolers until they’re handed off. Customers who won’t be home can designate a dropoff spot and leave their own cooler outside, so nothing is at risk of spoiling before they get to it.

That’s the rhythm of Farmstand Society, built by two women with a long history of business ownership while co-managing their own families. Jarrett raises meat, poultry and eggs at Lobster Hill Farm in Brewster, and Nitti farms fresh produce at Hidden Hope Farm on the Brewster-Patterson border.

A budding business idea

Nitti didn’t start out as a farmer. She used to own Gloss Salon in Katonah until the chemicals of the trade caught up with her.

“I got so sick, I couldn’t eat or drink because of the chemicals,” Nitti said. “So, I sold my house and bought a farm.”

Nitti has always grown food for her family on the side, so what began as recovery turned into a mission. She grows things people can’t easily find elsewhere on three-quarters of an acre, like tomatillos, unusual string bean varieties and other crops her body didn’t know well enough to reject. She and Jarrett started talking through the idea of an online market over a year ago, spending the winter working out the logistics. The site launched the first weekend of May, and the second weekend of August marked its 14th market of the season.

Jarrett said she and her husband, Andy, had talked about building something like this for years, but the timing wasn’t right.

“I was pregnant with twins at the time,” said Jarrett, who has three older children as well. 

It wasn’t until Jarrett and Nitti compared notes that the idea finally took shape.

“Shannon told me she’d been thinking of this, and I was like, ‘So have I!’”

A small, specialty farm like Nitti’s doesn’t have enough consistent supply for a table at traditional markets, so she serves as an add-on to other vendors. Even so, she and other vendors often end up with products nobody wanted that day. 

“You’re left with stuff you can’t sell and have to take it all the way home with you,” Nitti said.

That’s one problem Farmstand Society was built to solve. Nothing in a delivery box is leftover stock from a vendor’s own in-person market the previous weekend. It’s harvested, butchered, baked or otherwise made specifically for the order already sitting in the system. 

“They have Monday and Tuesday to bake or harvest, bring it to us Wednesday morning for us to pack, and we deliver Wednesday afternoon,” Jarrett said. “There’s no lag time between the freshest possible product and our customer’s front door.”

A sampling of the Farmstand Society’s home delivery fare. AMY SOWDER PHOTO

Sometimes the gap between harvest and delivery is hours-long, not days. Nitti picks her own produce at about 7 a.m. Wednesday, and it’s on a customer’s doorstep that afternoon. Some vendors cut it even closer: the chef-crafted meals and hand-picked seafood vendor, Hooked New York, is at the Fulton Fish Market Cooperative in Hunts Point, Bronx, at 2:30 a.m., and cooking premade dinners by 4:30 a.m., and at least one baker doesn’t start until 1:30 a.m.

“I love that everything is fresh as can be,” Nitti said.

The platform now works with 16 to 17 core vendors on a given week, with new businesses cycling through a four-week trial, and new or seasonal items added most weeks.

Vendors sign on

Among the vendors who signed on early was Webb & Adam Provisions, a Katonah-based spice blends and baked goods business. Co-founder Chris Mazzini-Chin said the appeal was less about sales and more about being part of a local food community. 

“We didn’t want to join to just be a product on a page,” Mazzini-Chin said. “They’ve really opened up this community.” 

Mazzini-Chin said the chance to swap notes with other small food businesses — a bread baker, a coffee roaster, a produce grower — has been as valuable as the sales themselves, especially while the business works out its marketing strategy.

Jess Parente, the Culinary Institute of America-trained owner of Triple C Bakery in North Salem, also joined the platform early on. As a vendor who also sells at in-person markets, Parente said she appreciates that Farmstand Society offers what a folding table under a tent could not: convenience, for her and for customers. 

“It’s a one-stop shop,” Parente said. “When I work the markets, I can’t see the other vendors. I’m busy and can’t go anywhere.”

What gets left behind, of course, is the charm of the market event itself. Many shoppers enjoy the live music, the nonprofit tables, the chance to trade recipes with a stranger in line or catch up with a vendor face-to-face.

But the convenience for both shoppers and vendors is quite a draw.

Stephanie Vass, who co-owns Westchester Maple in South Salem with her husband, Nate, said the family’s two kids limit them to selling at two in-person markets a week at most. For her, Farmstand Society stretches the availability of their 100% pure maple syrup tapped from their own trees to a weekend-long market that shoppers can reach whenever it suits them. 

“This way, people can shop on their own time, and we’re still doing what we love,” Vass said.

For Sorin Klares, who shops for her family from Goldens Bridge, the appeal was quality without the guesswork of a Community Supported Agriculture box.

“I find that CSAs can be difficult to manage because you never really know what you are going to receive,” Klares said, adding that she likes being able to choose exactly what her family wants each week. The baked goods and meats have become weekly staples, and the growing list of vendors keeps the offerings fresh, she said.

That kind of loyalty shows up in the numbers, Jarrett said. Early orders from new customers often start around $50 to $75 — a loaf of sourdough, a jar of jam, a spice mix, some peppers — before climbing toward $175 or $275 as trust builds. Out of 26 orders placed last weekend, 12 came from new customers, Jarrett said.

“We’re really about transparency and convenience,” Nitti said. Every item in a delivery box keeps its own maker’s packaging and name, so shoppers know exactly whose farm or kitchen it came from, and can find every vendor’s social media link on the Farmstand Society website. 

Vendors get their own version of that transparency, too. The founders offer vendors social media and marketing tips, plus comprehensive sales data. Nitti and Jarrett hand each vendor a full breakdown after every market showing stats such as how many customers ordered, repeat buyers, what sold and what didn’t, and a four-week trajectory. 

“We want them to have all the data,” Nitti said. “They can learn that this or that gained traction over four weeks, and they can invest with confidence.”

Farmstand Society is also a year-round market. Come winter, there will be storage crops such as root vegetables and apples, plus green-house grown produce, meats, dairy, spices, baked goods and other shelf-stable items. The founders make themselves available to troubleshoot.

“We host all our markets, but everyone promotes their own items. We come together as a community, and Farmstand Society provides the platform and handles delivery,” Jarrett said.

“We’re like the Amazon of farmers markets.”

Visit thefarmstandsociety.com for more information.