This past Saturday June and I participated in an “Island Market” at Foodland Waimea. This is the third such event Foodland has sponsored recently. It’s the same as a farmers market in that the farmers that supply Foodland have their produce on display. Even though the regularly scheduled farmers market was right down the street, based on the volume of produce sold Foodland’s Island Market did very well.

There was a steady flow of customers from 8 a.m. until noon. We sold out most of what we brought and had to ask Jose, the produce manager, if we could get more product from the store’s stock.

The Dragonfruit lady attracted lots of attention. Dragonfruit is attractive to look at and delicious to eat.

We were at the next two tables. We had bananas, cucumbers, green onions, lettuce, cocktail, Hamakua sweets, and heirloom tomatoes on display. That’s Kelvin Shigemura, an executive at Armstrong Produce, lending a hand at our booth. June was further down, helping the chef putting out his tasty samples.

This next photo is of June preparing samples of Cherokee Purple heirloom tomatoes. People were eager to try these ugly, non-uniform, colorful and very tasty tomatoes, and asked a lot of questions. Some really liked the fact that the heirloom tomatoes are not uniform in appearance. We told them that heirloom tomatoes were developed more than 50 years ago, when people were more interested in good taste than in ease of shipping.

Chef Keoni, preparing pupu for the line of customers in front. Tiffany Tom, Foodland’s Produce Buyer, was making sure the farmers were supplied with food and drink. Again, Foodland made sure the farmers were well cared for.

Chef Kent made an heirloom sandwich. It was made up of heirloom tomato slices in place of bread, with grilled eggplant, basil, thick balsamic vinegar ($40 a bottle), olive oil, Hawaiian salt and white pepper. It was really good.

I would love to see the photos of the farmers, which were outside during the Island Market event, displayed inside the different Foodland stores. This would go a long way in showing customers how much of Foodland’s produce is supplied by local farmers.