Published: June 05, 2008 08:18 pm      

Gas prices hit Farmers Market

EDMOND — Edmond’s Farmers Market will be open for business as usual Saturday when vendors line up with their wares.

Whether vendors are raising cattle, produce or providing honey for market visitors, they have seen the effect of rising fuel prices. Crude oil rose by 4.6 percent to $127.90 a barrel Thursday, and natural gas costs have increased as well.

Edmond area vendors say they are doing their best to keep costs down for consumers. The summer Farmers Market officially opens this weekend at the Festival Market Place in downtown Edmond.

Craig McCoy, owner of Bar Mac Cafe and Catering in Guthrie, brings beef and buffalo to the market.

“I raise the beef and I rep the buffalo from a buffalo ranch in Hinton,” McCoy said. “I’ve seen an overall increase in costs of 12-15 percent so far. My costs are going up but my overall sales have increased so I am absorbing as much of the increase as I can.”

He buys a special blend of feed for his cattle and has paid $185 a ton.

“The last time I bought it, it was $248,” McCoy said. “We feed that year-round, and it is a cost that we just absorbed.”

McCoy was one of the founders of Edmond’s Farmers Market, and he has been in the ranching business for 42 years, following in the footsteps of his father, Bill McCoy.

As to raising his prices: “My daddy used to say, ‘Don’t be jumping on the scaredy band wagon, sit on the side as long as you can, and things will have a better chance of coming back.’”

He said his biggest price pinch has been in the salsa for his breakfast burrito.

“We make our homemade salsa and the pepper prices have gone sky high for chilis. Last Saturday we sold 95 burritos and gave away $25 in salsa,” McCoy said.

Burrito lovers will pay an additional 25 cents for their Saturday burrito hit.

Treasa and Randy Brady have a little more than 100 bee hives. In addition to shipping costs of bottles and supplies, the Bradys also have the cost of getting to their hives in Norman and north of Edmond.

“We are trying to hold (prices) as long as we can,” Randy Brady said. “If we get a good enough production out of our hives we will be able to absorb it (costs).”

The Bradys also have honey comb, and are developing a new product line of goat’s milk soap as well as adding lavendar products to their business.

Some vendors truck produce in to fill in seasonal items, but most vendors raise their own produce to bring to the Farmers Market. The costs involved from ground to table involve more than the gasoline for travel.

Wayne and Connie Whitmore have been in the produce business for 25 years and have been coming to Edmond’s Farmers Market for the past five, bringing their home-grown produce from their 10-acre farm near Coyle.

It’s a family business for them as their son, daughter and Wayne’s parents all pitch in to help the other employees.

Connie Whitmore said gasoline prices have affected the cost of getting their products to the market, but that diesel fuel used in their tractors has been more of a concern.

“The pumps we use to irrigate our fields during the hot, dry winds also require diesel to run,” Connie Whitmore said.

“We also use a lot of plastic products that are petroleum based as well as commercially prepared fertilizer, which has almost doubled in price.”

Nitrogen fertilizer is made from natural gas.

Connie said they are trying to stay comparably priced with the Dallas wholesale market.

“We are just finishing our asparagus season, and we saw prices going up on the asparagus that was trucked in from Mexico and California,” she said.

As for passing on the cost to the consumer, Whitmore said they might have to increase prices somewhat, but right now they are trying to keep their prices close to last year’s.

“We don’t buy any produce to sell at the market,” Whitmore said, “so that helps us some.”

In addition to strawberries, which are already out of season, and the asparagus, which is ending its season, the Whitmores also grow blackberries — which will be ready in a week or two — zucchini and yellow squash, onions, new potatoes, eggplant, cucumbers, okra, sweet corn and Anaheim peppers and chilies, which they roast at the markets.

The Whitmores also raise cattle and bring the processed meat to market.

“Everything we sell, we grow ourselves, this is our passion,” Connie Whitmore said.