Tilth Harvest Fair

We had a wonderful day at the Tilth Harvest Fair yesterday, in fact, it was the most successful day I've ever had, in 12 years of vending.

When I first started doing the Harvest Fair 9 years ago, it was a very busy event, with 7 or 8 different hot food vendors, lots of produce, and chef demos. Five years later it was a much smaller event, and we were the only food vendor. It was still a very good event for us, but our sales didn't change much, probably because it wasn't as well attended.

Someone who works with the organization told me that they lost a key outreach person around that time, which might explain the smaller turnout. I figured the lower attendance was because, when the Harvest Fair started 30 years ago, it was the only all-organic produce sale in town, and until relatively recently there still wasn't much competition. But now there are farmers' markets with plenty of organic produce nearly every day of the week. During the time that I've been doing the Harvest Fair, seven new markets have opened in different Seattle neighborhoods.

It seemed like the Tilth folks really went out of their way this year to set their event apart. Sure, it's a produce sale and there are produce sales nealy every day of the week, but this was a lovely party, with music and kids' activities and educational events, set in a great park, celebrating sustainable food.