It’s opening week for Leelanau’s newest farm market, a Northport-based farm is launching a brand-new product line in collaboration with other local growers, U-pick season is fully underway, and a Suttons Bay market is celebrating its biggest sales week in its three-decade history. These are just a few of the happenings across Leelanau’s business community right now, and the Leelanau Ticker has the full rundown.

Opening weekend arrives for Lively NeighborFood Market

Back in April, the Leelanau Ticker reported on the Lively NeighborFood Market, a new farm market Empire Township residents Jim and Kelly Lively were working to launch by way of a $25,000 GoFundMe campaign. While the market missed its target opening date of Memorial Day weekend, Jim Lively tells the Leelanau Ticker that Lively NeighborFood Market will officially go live this weekend.

“We’re finally licensed, and will be soft open parts of this week to neighbors,” Lively said earlier this week. “I’m targeting Saturday to be ‘open to public’. We also have music – The Accidentals  - on Sunday, and will be selling food from the market there.”

Lively NeighborFood Market is a farm market that operates on a consignment model. Partner farms or makers will drop off their products and set prices, and the market will manage transactions. The market then takes a cut of the profits, though most money from sales will go to the growers.

According to a post on the Lively NeighborFood Market Facebook page, more than half a dozen local farms are on board for opening weekend, including the Livelys’ farm (Lively Farm), Bluebird Farm & Gardens, Ken’s Farm, Anavery Fine Foods, Noonan and Sons, and Recker Swine Farm. Other partners will offer up prepared foods (Mel&Fell, a catering company based in Empire), artisan gifts (including works from Kristin Hurlin of Glen Arbor Artisans, soaps from Land of Milk & Honey, and jewelry from Wandering Waters Designs), and locally-made food products (cheese from Idyll Farms or Leelanau Cheese, desserts and treats from Grocery’s Daughter Chocolate or BayFront Chocolates, coffee from Higher Grounds, and more).

As of press time, Lively hadn’t yet settled on operating hours for the weekend, but urged prospective customers to keep an eye on the market’s Facebook page.

Hallstedt Homestead Cherries launches a new product line, plots ‘Cherry-Ganza’ event

Hallstedt Homestead Cherries, a U-pick cherry farm in Northport, announced it will serve as “the home farm of Red Truck Orchards, a new collective of farms producing an artisan cherry wine vinegar.”

According to the email announcement, HH Cherries founder and co-owner Phil Hallstedt “has been working for six years to develop an innovative product made from Montmorency Tart and sweet cherries.” The finished product will offer “a bright and smooth taste compared to apple cider vinegar, while packing the antioxidants and anthocyanins found naturally in cherries.” Produced in collaboration with other cherry farms, the purpose of the vinegar and the Red Truck Orchards operation “is to support and strengthen small local farms.”

To celebrate the launch and the release of the new cherry vinegar, HH Cherries is hosting a ticketed event called “Cherry-Ganza” on Saturday, July 20. That event will feature a lunch prepared by Jimmy Schmidt, a revered chef, cookbook author, restauranteur, and farm-to-table pioneer with three James Beard awards to his name.

“Chef Schmidt will serve and share several recipes highlighting the power of sweet and tart cherries to truly delight one’s culinary taste buds,” HH Cherries shares in its email. “Jimmy will be preparing Angus Brisket Sliders, beverages, appetizers, salads, and of course, Jimmy’s unique spin of Cherries Jubilee.”

Tickets are $70 for adults and $25 for kids, and are available on the HH Cherries website. Each adult ticket comes with five pounds of U-pick cherries. The total experience, including lunch and cherry picking, is expected to last approximately 90 minutes, and two sessions are being offered – one starting at 11am and one at 1pm.

It’s U-pick season in Leelanau County

HH Cherries isn’t the only Leelanau County U-pick operation up and running for the season. U-pick flower season has been going since May at Omena Cut Flowers; U-pick cherries are up for grabs at Jacob’s Farm; Alpers Berry Farm in Suttons Bay opened for U-pick raspberries last weekend; and Bulldog Berries opened its blueberry U-pick on Wednesday.

Hansen Foods posts biggest week in store history

Call it proof that northern Michigan is continuing to grow, or maybe just a byproduct of climbing grocery prices. Either way, Hansen Foods, a specialty market in Suttons Bay that first opened in 1993, posted the biggest sales week in its 31-year history last week. The previous record was set just last year.

“And just like that, a record-breaking week is behind us! The best week in store history,” Hansen Foods reported on its Facebook page on Sunday. The announcement came at the end of both Cherry Festival week in Traverse City and a long Fourth of July weekend. 

As part of the record-breaking week, three Hansen Foods customers – the three who happened to be “at the registers checking out” the moment the record was broken on Saturday – received their groceries free of charge.

A new owner for a Glen Arbor institution

If you’ve stopped in at Glen Arbor’s Cottage Book Shop this summer, you might have noticed a changing of the guard. Back in April, Jenny Puvogel officially took over as the new owner of the long-running independent bookshop, which first opened its doors in the mid-1980s. A five-year employee of Cottage Books before buying the business, Puvogel is the fourth owner in the shop’s near-four-decade history. She takes over from previous owner Sue Boucher, who bought the store 10 years ago from Barba Siepker. Siepker acquired the shop in 1995 from Mollie Weeks, who founded the business in 1985.