The Peterborough Regional Farmers Network (PRFN) says it has withdrawn its bid to operate a year-round farmers market on Saturdays at Morrow Park.
The PRFN hosts a Saturday’s market in the city’s downtown at the Citi Centre courtyard during the summer and Peterborough Square during the winter. Chairperson Julie Fleming says the bid was initially made following input from its vendors, volunteers and customers who encouraged the network to explore all options for the future.
However, she says further engagement convinced the network to concentrate on growing the downtown market and withdraw its request for proposal.
“Through that process, and the further engagement of our vendors and volunteers, we arrived at a decision to focus efforts on positioning Peterborough’s downtown as a farmers market destination,” she wrote in an email to Global News Peterborough. “As a result, we decided to withdraw from the RFP for Morrow Park.
“We now have the opportunity to work with the downtown Wednesday market (PDFM) to build on our respective successes to date. We look forward to working with the city in the coming months and years through their ongoing process of transforming Peterborough’s downtown.”
The city is seeking a three-year operator for the market and opened the bidding proposal last fall. The Peterborough District Farmers Market Association — who for years has hosted the market at Morrow Park — acknowledge that it also submitted a bid.
The PRFN formed after some vendors were expelled from the PDFM’s Saturday market in the spring of 2018 over what the board says was “behaviour that is detrimental to the corporation,” which included claims of making false and disparaging statements about the market and aggressive conduct toward other vendors.
The city is expected to make a decision for the year-round operator this spring.