Farmers Market: Entrepreneurial Haven

There’s more to the recently opened Sherman Oaks Farmers Market than fresh fruits and vegetables, bakery items, honey and nuts—though that’s plenty in itself.

The market, at the corner of Sepulveda Boulevard and Camarillo Street, is also a Saturday morning haven for the entrepreneurially minded.

Take Danette McReynolds, who sells soap made with goat's milk as Chèvre Lavande from a booth at the market.

For 20 years, McReynolds worked for a builder, handling mortgages. When the economic downturn hit, she stared at the goats on her farm in Thousand Oaks and told her husband, “I think we can do something with these goats.”

The result: handmade goat-milk soaps infused with lavender (also grown on her farm), grapefruit and other ingredients. McReynolds, who created the soap business a year ago, has information posted on Facebook and sells at farmers markets and an Agoura gift shop, and has plans to expand. On a recent Saturday, she handed out bunches of fragrant, fresh-cut lavender to customers who bought soaps.

Then there’s Rondo Mieczkowski, who works for an Internet company but went into business last year as Coldwater Canyon Provisions, making jams, pickles, chutneys and relishes. He uses his grandmother’s kosher recipes and produce he buys from farmers markets.

On a recent Saturday, his booth at the Sherman Oaks Farmers Market proudly displayed the awards he’s won at the Los Angeles County Fair and the California state fair in Sacramento. That prize, for his strawberry rhubarb jam, prompted him to start the business.

“It’s nice being able to give people food,” he said, as he enticed customers with sample spoonfuls of jam.

For farmers like Sherry Raylis, who drives more than three hours from Nicholas Family Farms near Fresno to sell organic peaches and plums here, the Sherman Oaks market provides one way to beat the heavy competition in farming areas farther north.

“We come here because there’s so much produce up there,” she said. “Plus, the people here really appreciate the fresh fruit and vegetables we bring.”

The entrepreneurial spirit extends to the market itself, created and run by the Sherman Oaks Chamber of Commerce. Chamber President Robert Cohen, who on a recent Saturday hustled to open shade umbrellas and set up tables, said he began working in 2004 to try to get a market started in Sherman Oaks. The market opened in April of this year.

The hardest part was finding an empty lot, but thanks to the development firm M. David Paul, and due to the down economy, the chamber found a vacant lot at the north end of the Sherman Oaks Galleria.

“Some farmers markets are run by outside companies that come into an area,” Cohen said. “But this market is run by the chamber with the goal of helping the community because of economic cutbacks. Any profits that we make stay in the community for the benefit of the community.”

Cohen, who says the market now has 34 vendors and is turning a small profit, is seeking more growth as word gets out to sellers and shoppers.

The Sherman Oaks Farmers Market, at Sepulveda Boulevard and
Camarillo Street, is held Saturdays from 8 a.m. to 1 p.m.