By Anna Bedell
Fresh air, fresh produce and fresh new faces was the theme at the Bristol Farmer’s Market which kicked off its 2021 season by adding two new vendors to this year’s roster.
Better Half Brewing and 3rd Day Nutraceuticals were the newest vendors participating this year – joining the 15 other regular vendors this past Saturday.
“We love supporting the community, we love everybody, and talk to everybody about Better Half and having a good time with us,” said Rachel Haseltine who mentioned Better Half is approaching its two year anniversary this August.
“It’s really great to be outside and see the community all coming together, post pandemic,” said Michael Haseltine, the other half of Better Half.
Mike Zammett, owner of 3rd Day Nutraceuticals, said they started the company as a dietary supplement company that focused on organic and plant based ingredients to supplement daily health.
“We really try to balance between science and nature and try to stay in the middle and both have their places; we’re right down the road here in Bristol,” said Zammett. “We have allergy capsules and sprays, we have anti inflammatory immune boosting for those people that imbibe – I tested it for science and hydration,” he laughed.
Supporting local farms, the town of Bristol organizes this event every year.
Bristol Mayor Ellen Zoppo-Sassu said the Farmers Market was previously around the corner in an area known as the patch.
“The farmers market has been in Bristol for years, but we’ve reimagined it about three years ago,” said Zoppo-Sassu. “We invited more vendors and tried to make it more of a community event.”
Zoppo-Sassou said the city wanted it to be kind of a center of community activity, as well as the fact that this is to form a census track basis.
“For lower socio-economic neighborhoods, there’s a little bit of a food oasis here, there’s not a lot of markets with fresh foods so that was another really important piece that we wanted to bring to downtown,” said Zoppo-Sassu.
She said that people could have easy access to food and obviously the pandemic, made it even more important that people could come out in an outdoor setting and socialize but also have access to high quality products.
There were two food trucks, Dude’s Donuts and Heavenly Smoke BBQ.
Even local Bristol firefighters were enjoying the food, while being there to support the communiy.
Community members were able to see regular vendors – Café Real, Firefly Hollow Brewing, Amazing Love Farm [vegan option] and Tonn’s Orchard, return for yet another season.
Musical duo Django’s Reserve, played their Gyspy Jazz music as the backdrop for this gorgeous sunny day while community members and vendors alike enjoyed the atmosphere.
The Bristol Farmer’s Market will be held Saturdays, from 10 a.m. until 1 p.m., until Oct. 30 at Center Square.