If you live anywhere in Metro Detroit, you've likely visited Eastern Market on a Saturday when local farmers, wholesalers, and other food entrepreneurs offer their products to the public. You may not be aware, however, that Eastern Market operates Monday through Friday during predawn hours as a wholesale market where food entrepreneurs, chefs, and grocers purchase wholesale produce from local farmers.
Shannon Byrne is the owner of
Slow Jams, a Grosse Pointe-based producer of artisan jams and jellies that sources as many of its ingredients as possible from local farmers. One of her main sources of herbs is
Ruhlig Farms, a 44-year-old family farm located 30 miles south of Detroit in Carleton, Mich. Each week, she heads to Eastern Market to purchase ingredients she needs for production, then heads to a community kitchen in Grosse Pointe where she works with family to make jams that are sold in local grocery stores and at Eastern Market's Saturday market.
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This video was produced by Cass Corridor Films.
Support for this series on food and agriculture in Southeast Michigan is provided in part by the Detroit Food and Agriculture Network. See other stories in this series here.
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