farmers market
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Brenda L. Showalter | The Republic
Linda and Larry VanDeWege sell a variety of baked goods, including gluten-free items, Saturday mornings at the downtown Columbus Farmers Market.
Vendor: Linda and Larry VanDeWege
Brand: Free To Be NATURALEE
City: Columbus
Editor’s note: Starting today, we begin a new weekly feature, highlighting vendors from the area farmers markets. Learn more about the farmers, bakers, woodworkers, jewelry makers, weavers, seamstresses, painters, photographers and more who make the summer shopping experience unique.
Q: How long have you been a part of the market?
A: Since June 11, 2011 (Our 40th wedding anniversary).
Q: Which market do you participate in?
A: Columbus Farmers Market, in Cummins parking lot, 501 Brown St., across from Mill Race Park.
Q: What do you sell?
A: Baked goods with whole grains and whole, pure ingredients, including gluten-free (granolas, cakes, cookies, bread, pizza crusts, etc.).
Q: How long have you been making your goods?
A: I (Linda) began baking healthy foods as a newlywed. It seemed important to me to provide healthy food for my family, but our business began here at the farmers market.
Q: Talk about the process of creating your items.
A: The strength of our new business seems to be our gluten-free and our granola products. The technology that I developed years ago that made my whole wheat healthy goodies popular with my kids and their friends transferred very nicely into developing a gluten-free product that is not only soft, moist and delicious but is able to compete with the non-gluten free product. Now, due to the encouragement of our customers, we have recently secured a commercial kitchen and are beginning to place our product in local businesses.
Q: What do you like about being a part of the market?
A: When we moved to Columbus after living 31 years in Kokomo, I found it difficult to go through town and not know a single face. So last year I decided to go into the farmers market.
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