ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. (KRQE) – One local farm is bringing the farmer’s market experience to the traditional retail environment.
On Menaul Boulevard near San Mateo, you’ll find what the store managers call a farmers market cleverly disguised as a grocery store. There customers can easily access raw milk, meat, and produce, produced and sold, directly by New Mexico farmers.
“So like a farmer’s market, everything in here is product of New Mexico. This food is grown and raised by your neighbors,” said Amelia Vogel, local food advocate at Farm to You by Bomvida.
Farm to You by Bomvida Farms also offers honey, corn, coffee, eggs, and a wide variety of produce. “There’s a lot of products here that I never would’ve guessed would’ve been here,” said first-time customer Mary Saracino of Albuquerque.
Vogel, a local farmer and an employee at the store, said that while farmers markets are one way to reach customers, they’re actually not very profitable for farms. At the end of the day, some farmers end up not breaking even, which is why this farm store is a welcomed approach, to consumers and farmers alike.
“In here, farmers bring what they’ve harvested when it’s ready and delicious and ready to sell, and we buy it at their asking price,” emphasized Vogel.
Among the store’s signature features are its emphasis on letting customers know where every product comes from and its efforts to pay farmers a fair wage.
“Instead of the usual habit of grocery stores telling the farmers what their food is worth, the farmers tell us what it costs for them to make it, and that’s what we pay them,” said Chris Whitson, co-owner of Farm to You by Bomvida Farms.
The goal is to make local products accessible to everyone while giving farmers a leg up.
“We’re resetting the narrative that food is not cheap, food is not easy to grow, but it can be high quality and worth it. And so that’s basically what we built our Farm to You store around,” continued Whitson.
This location in Albuquerque is Bomvida’s second store, they opened their first farm store in 2023 in Belen.