This report covers April 2024 through March 2025, a time of change in San Francisco and beyond. Through economic uncertainty and political transitions, Foodwise farmers markets have been there for California family farms, food makers, and San Francisco residents as a source of livelihood, fresh food access, education, and connection.
Foodwise farmers markets helped sustain and strengthen small farms and food makers by connecting them with new customers and sales channels. We expanded our Building Equity program, supporting dozens of early-stage BIPOC entrepreneurs in growing their businesses. Amid state budget cuts, we worked in coalition with our market community to defend healthy food access for low-income Californians. And as always, we delivered free food education to thousands of San Francisco kids and market visitors.
As we work with our community to grow a fair, regenerative, and nourishing food future in the Bay Area and beyond, we are grounded in our shared values of equity, environmental stewardship, and joy. We can't do this important work without you! Let’s look back on what we accomplished together.
Foodwise provides tools, experiences, and exposure to so many people, including the young students of the city. Everyone should have the chance to experience what a perfect summer tomato tastes like or how the stone fruit varieties change over the course of 3-4 months. The students should also have access to learn from the people that are doing the job of farming, selling, and cooking... That’s where inspiration starts.
—Chef Gaby Maeda, Friends & Family
Our Commitment to Diversity, Equity, Inclusion & Justice
In a political moment when DEI efforts are under attack, Foodwise remains firmly committed to advancing diversity, equity, inclusion, and justice within our organization, Bay Area community, and food system at large. In this report, learn more about specific actions we are taking to build an equitable and sustainable food system, one that nourishes, celebrates, and empowers all.
Connecting the San Francisco Bay Area with California’s Farms
Since 1993, we’ve connected climate-wise California family farms with Bay Area residents to make fresh, sustainably grown food accessible to all. Our farmers markets reflect the talent, innovation, and diversity of our community.
Uplifting Small Family Farms & Food Makers
Foodwise’s Ferry Plaza Farmers Market and Mission Community Market are vital sources of income for family farms and food businesses. Farmers and food makers report that Foodwise farmers markets account for about 25% of their sales on average. Furthermore, our sellers reported that participating in our markets has led to:
- 96% access to new customers
- 67% restaurant sales and connections
- 45% new sales channels
We only sell at farmers markets, so that is our direct connection with customers… Foodwise gives farmers like us a vehicle and space to create value for the health of their community. It is important to us because it helps us build trust with the people at the farmers market who support us, and who know that we’re going to show up for them, rain or shine.
—Farmers Rudy Jimenez and Maria Gonzalez, Green Thumb Farms
Launching and Supporting Small Businesses
We work with innovative small business owners who prioritize sustainability, social justice, and community health. Starting a food enterprise can be risky, requiring a lot of up-front investment. Our farmers markets provide an entry point for entrepreneurs to test their products, build their brand, and grow their audience.
We welcomed 11 new farms and food businesses at Foodwise farmers markets:
Chef Sarah Germany | Flora Gelateria | Gourmonade | Keep It Simple Juice (pictured) | Peaches Patties | Redwood Tea Estate | Pixlcat | Portside Bakery | Signal Coffee Roasters | Stepladder Ranch & Creamery | Umbel Roots Farm
As a long-time chef-shopper and volunteer, I knew that launching my plant-based gelato business at Foodwise’s Ferry Plaza Farmers Market would align with my values: superior ingredients, incredible community, and a shared mission to do better for the planet. I can’t even quantify the tremendous support I receive from staff, volunteers, fellow vendors, and loyal shoppers. The credibility and connection that comes from participating in this market creates opportunities for my small business that I do not take for granted!
—Chef Christine Law, Flora Gelateria
Building Equity for BIPOC Entrepreneurs
Your support ensures access to economic opportunity for local, sustainable, and BIPOC-owned food businesses, so they can grow and thrive. Through our Building Equity program, we provide business development resources and farmers market opportunities to support the growth, economic viability, and asset-building of BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, and People of Color) entrepreneurs across the Bay Area.
Building Equity: Setting Early-Stage Businesses Up for Success
Establishing a food business is hard, made even more so by barriers created by systemic racism and lack of access to capital or intergenerational wealth. Farmers markets offer a lower-risk way for new entrepreneurs to gain access to sales channels and build an audience.
Working with our community partners En2action, In The Black, La Cocina, and Mandela Partners, Foodwise helps set business owners up for success at the farmers market by providing:
- Technical assistance with stall setup, equipment, and business coaching
- Financial support by waiving stall fees and underwriting health and fire permit fees
- Marketing, promotion, and event opportunities
Building Equity: Pathways from Pop-up to Permanent
Our Building Equity program offers three progressive levels for entrepreneurs at the farmers market:
- Pop-Up: Entrepreneur participates in a one- to three-month pop-up residency in a Foodwise farmers market (like Remy Creations, shown here) or in our Pop-Ups in the Plaza events.
- Subsidized Placement: When a business is ready and space is available in our farmers markets, a vendor may be invited for longer-term placement. For the first year, Foodwise subsidizes their permit fees and offers a reduced rate as they are establishing a thriving presence and customer base in the market.
- Graduation: After a year, they graduate to paying our standard rates as a permanent vendor.
Building Equity: Pop-Up Residency Stars
Last year, 25 BIPOC-, immigrant-, and women-led businesses popped up at Foodwise farmers markets for a one- to three-month residency, building their brands and sharing their passion, talents, and delicious food.
Adelita’s Antojitos | Anahita SF Catering | Asúkar (pictured, left) | The Baking Endeavor | Café con Cariño (pictured, right) | Cool Rolls | Flor de Chile | Hella Juiced | Keep It Simple Juice | Mekem's Kitchen | Mi Comedor | Mo’Raysha’s | Pacifico | Pass the Sauced | The Real Big Mama’s | Remy’s Creations | RNZ Catering | Sabores del Sur | Sal De Vida | Soul Ties | Suyos | Tilín Tilín | Tonantzin | What the Shuck | Wright’s Delights
Pop-Ups on the Plaza: Celebrating BIPOC Food Makers
An initiative of our Building Equity program, Pop-Ups on the Plaza is a series of public events celebrating BIPOC-owned food and craft businesses. Activating San Francisco’s Ferry Terminal Plaza and Ferry Plaza Farmers Market, these popular free events offer businesses exposure to thousands of Bay Area visitors.
Last year, we hosted 5 Pop-Ups on the Plaza events featuring 45 businesses total, with some popping up more than once:
- Juneteenth on the Waterfront | 20 businesses
- Black Craft Market | 11 businesses
- Fall Fest | 20 businesses
- Black Holiday Market | 16 businesses
- Celebrating BIPOC Women Makers | 14 businesses
It's always a great time and a pleasure to be able to attend these Pop-Ups on the Plaza year after year! I've seen my growth from the first one to the latest one and it doesn't get any better than this. Such a huge platform to showcase our work in. It's important to help small businesses, but even more special to showcase Black-owned businesses and I'm glad Foodwise continues to do just that.
—Alisha Wilson, Lil' Alijo Catering & Events
Building Equity: New Permanent Vendors
We were excited to welcome Chef Sarah Germany, Gourmonade (pictured), Peaches Patties, Baby Bean Pie, and Keep It Simple Juice on the pop-up to permanent track at the Ferry Plaza Farmers Market. Over the years, 17 of our Building Equity pop-up participants have transitioned to permanent vendors at our markets, and some have gone on to open thriving brick-and-mortar businesses.
Being a part of the Building Equity program has reshaped everything about how we are in business now. It is a delicious blessing to be a waste reduction and food rescue driven project and then land in an oasis of luscious local bounty every week, the flavor combinations are endless!!! Because of our market presence and ability to meet interested retailers in a space where they can sample our products with ease, we have products in several supermarkets in SF!!! For a nerdy kid with too many medical conditions to ever be on any sports team, being a part of the Foodwise farmers market community feels like I finally made the Varsity Team!!!
—Chef Sarah Germany
Building Equity participants share what being part of the farmers market community means to them:
Ensuring Fresh Food Access for All
Like you, we believe that healthy food is a right, not a privilege. As the cost of living increases in the Bay Area and across the country, lower-income individuals and families have been most impacted, with 1 in 4 San Francisco residents at risk for food insecurity. Together, we’re helping families put fresh, local food on the table, while strengthening vital lifelines between small California farms and our Bay Area community.
Market Match: Making Farmers Markets Affordable
Through the Market Match program, low-income shoppers can make the most of their CalFresh EBT benefits at Foodwise farmers markets to buy nutritious food and support local farmers. When a customer uses their EBT card, they receive an equal amount in Market Match tokens to spend on fresh fruits and vegetables, up to $15 per day—doubling their food dollars for free.
Save Market Match: Defending Healthy Food Access for All Californians
In 2024, Governor Newsom proposed cutting $35 million in funding for the California Nutrition Incentive Program (CNIP) and Market Match to help balance the state budget. These cuts would have devastated this critical safety net program for food-insecure families and vital source of income for small farmers.
Foodwise advocated in coalition with market operators and organizations across the state, and rallied our Bay Area community to write letters and make phone calls to our representatives. Shown here, Foodwise staff and farmers traveled to Sacramento to meet with elected officials in person. Together, we saved Market Match in the annual budget!
As federal cuts to SNAP (Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program) shift the burden to state budgets, we’ll be watching closely and taking action to continue to protect food access for Californians and our Bay Area community.
This [the Market Match program] makes it possible for me not to go hungry. It is a great blessing to me and many others.
—Pamela, farmers market shopper and CalFresh EBT recipient
Empowering Eaters of All Ages
Education has always been at the heart of Foodwise’s work. Our farmers markets are spaces where neighbors can learn and share food knowledge, put values into action, and build community together. Whether you’re a farmers market regular or a kid visiting for the first time, our education programs inspire eaters of all ages to take part in a fair, regenerative, and delicious food future for all.
Foodwise Kids
For kids to grow up with a love of fresh fruits and vegetables, they need joyful opportunities to taste, learn, and share food in community. Through Foodwise Kids, San Francisco youth build food wisdom and nurture cooking skills for life.
Since 2012, Foodwise has offered free nutrition and wellness programs to San Francisco Unified School District elementary school classes (grades 1 through 5), using the farmers market as a classroom. Through comparative tastings, exploring the market, and hands-on cooking lessons, we nurture children’s love for fruits and vegetables, teach them to prepare healthy, seasonal foods, and raise their awareness of their role in a sustainable food system.
Connecting Bay Area Kids with Fresh Food & Farmers
Foodwise has been here for thousands of SFUSD students, offering free food education to support their learning, health, and wellbeing. Every Tuesday and Thursday, we welcome kids to the farmers market to explore and taste, meet local farmers, and learn how to prepare healthy, seasonal foods alongside their classmates. In the summer, we host summer camps from local YMCA chapters, Boys & Girls Clubs, and other community groups.
The demand and waitlist for this free program remains high. Foodwise Kids prioritizes higher need classes, where over 80% of students qualify for free and reduced price lunch, as well as schools that have higher percentages of BIPOC students, groups who statistically have less access to fresh, local produce.
I am not sure what I liked best—students learning about different produce and where it is locally grown or the collaboration and budgeting that took place amongst students in a setting outside the classroom. Seeing them respond to the variety of colorful items and interact with the vendor was priceless.
—SFUSD elementary school teacher
Foodwise Teens
A sustainable food future depends on the next generation. Last year, 97 students participated in Foodwise Teens, a paid youth development program where teens become change agents for a sustainable, equitable, and nourishing food future. Through hands-on experiences in the garden, in the kitchen, and at the farmers market, students learn about food justice, develop important life and job skills, and build community together.
Foodwise currently offers this paid after-school program for high school students at three San Francisco Unified School District (SFUSD) partner schools, prioritizing students who have been underserved in the academic environment. Offering three progressive sessions throughout the year (Seed, Grow, Cultivate), Foodwise Teens is a constant source of connection, learning, and empowerment.
Teens Growing Food & Community Together
Foodwise Teens participants explore ways to nurture their health and wellbeing, build leadership and stewardship, and explore careers in their food community. While students learn about food justice and sustainability, they also grow food in their school garden, cook together, and get job experiences at the farmers market. Students graduate from the program reporting increased self-confidence and deepened awareness of the food system and their agency within it.
What I enjoyed the most about this semester was that I was able to go to the garden and get my hands dirty, when planting all those fruits and veggies. I have always had an interest in gardening, and Foodwise was able to help me fulfill my interest in making that. I also really enjoyed going on Saturdays and cooking.
—Angelina, Foodwise Teens participant
Students Build Their Resumes & Confidence in the Farmers Market
Over the summer, 16 SFUSD students deepened their professional development by participating in the Foodwise Teens Summer Fellowship, a 6-week paid job placement and mentorship program, offered in partnership with Opportunities for All. Foodwise Teens worked with farmers and food makers, assisted farmers market shoppers at the info booth, or supported Foodwise Kids as educators themselves. The fellowship provided much-needed staffing support for farms, and an opportunity to offer on-the-job mentorship for local youth. Six teens wound up getting longer-term job placements in the farmers market with farmers or our operations team!
I’ve been a bit shy for most of my life, but the program allowed me to interact with many regular customers who visited the market every week. I also built connections with Sierra (Mangosay’s owner), other vendors, and other fellows. Working as a cashier, with the encouragement and guidance of Sierra, helped me get over my fear of speaking to strangers… I felt very empowered to participate in the community and food system because I got to meet all kinds of people and learn their stories.
—Courtney (left), Foodwise Teens participant, with Mangosay's Sierra Young and fellow participant Angelina
Having a Foodwise Teen help us for the summer is a win/win! We get the extra help during our busiest season, and in turn, we get to support a teen with what is likely their first summer job, and at the same time expose them to what makes our local food system so important. They get to experience firsthand what makes working at the market so special and rewarding while also getting a glimpse into the life of a farmer and small business owner.
—Farmer Sara Evett (right), McGinnis Ranch, with Foodwise Teen Max
Public Education Programs
Foodwise farmers markets are places for neighbors to gather and share food wisdom and culture. From public cooking demos to hands-on family activities, we provide a space for our community to connect and learn from each other, meet farmers and chefs, and deepen our understanding of culinary traditions and our food system.
Foodwise Demos Celebrate the Bay’s Diverse Food Culture
At our free cooking demos at the Ferry Plaza Farmers Market, 31 Bay Area chefs, local farmers, food makers (like Aruna Lee of Volcano Kimchi, shown here leading a kimchi demo), cookbook authors, and educators shared their stories and accessible, seasonal recipes at the Foodwise Classroom, with recipes and tastings for all. With 61% of them led by BIPOC cooks, these programs reflect the diverse cultures and richness of our food community. We also engaged thousands of community members online.
Our Community Sharing Food Wisdom
We were honored to host these local chefs and partners at the Foodwise Classroom:
Linda Shiue, MD, Spicebox Kitchen | Michael Carlisi, Barrio | Jason Smith, Far West Fungi | Karla Tatiana Vasquez, SalviSoul | Aruna Lee, Volcano Kimchi | Azikiwee Anderson, Rize Up Bakery | Princess and Brownie Sims, The Final Sauce (pictured) | Micah Siva, NOSH | Mario Ishii Hernandez, Frog Hollow Farm | Maria Gonzalez, Green Thumb Farms | Lolita Casazza and Tierra Vegetables | Dan Barber, Row 7 Seed Company, and Farmer Al Courchesne, Frog Hollow Farm | Maria Zizka, The Hostess Handbook | Mat Schuster, Canela | Kuldeep Singh, TIYA | MarQuita, That's My Jam | Sara Calvosa Olsen, Chími Nu’am | David Yoshimura, Nisei, with Hodo | Kaliva Morgan, Evolution Hot Sauce | Sitalbanat Muktari, That Hausa Vegan | Olive Said, Kitchen on Fire | Steve Sando, The Bean Book | Maria Finn, Forage. Father. Feast. | Mahboubeh Abbasgholizadeh and Lisa Kyung Gross, The League of Kitchens Cookbook | Clarice Lam, Breaking Bao | Jessie Sheehan, Salty, Cheesy, Herby, Crispy Snackable Bakes | Thassanee Ruthaiwat | Danielle Clark, Keep It Simple Juice | Amelia Eudailey, Chef HejHej | Peter Som, Family Style | Leisel Whitlock Petersen, Sainte Sophie Creole Confections
Volunteer Power
Over the year, 215 dedicated volunteers, interns, committee members, and board members generously contributed 4,871 hours introducing kids to fresh produce, helping shoppers at the farmers market, supporting our free cooking demos, and more. These team members are essential to keeping our work going!
The Saturday market is a great representation of SF—I feel lucky whenever I’m at the Veggie Valet. I get to see how hard the Foodwise team works to make the farmers market accessible and successful for as many people as possible. Food is so plentiful in the US, yet so many of our neighbors go hungry. I’ve been one of those neighbors, so what Foodwise does for our farmers and suppliers and San Franciscans of all income levels is personal and meaningful to me.
—Crystal Cao, Foodwise Volunteer
The most rewarding part of interning with Foodwise has been working directly with the next generation and teaching them about food sustainability, food justice, and healthy food choices. It’s been especially meaningful to help expose them to what a farmers market is and show them where our food really comes from. Watching them learn and get excited about food has made this experience truly fulfilling.
—Keylin Garcia Barrera, Foodwise Intern (shown right)
Thank You for Making a Difference
We could not do this work without you! Last year, 1,102 of you supported Foodwise’s farmers markets, food access, and education programs through individual donations or purchasing tickets to our fundraising events. Thank you for contributing to a thriving Bay Area that nourishes all people, local economies, and the living earth.
Financials: Your Donations at Work
We can't do this good work without deep investment from our supporters. Through your generosity, we were able to serve our Bay Area community through our farmers markets, food access initiatives, and education programs. Here’s how we put your donations to work.
Let’s Grow a Foodwise Future Together
At Foodwise, we are firmly committed to keeping small, climate-wise farms viable, ensuring access to fresh, healthy food for all Bay Area families, and supporting youth in becoming informed eaters and food leaders. Your participation is essential. Thank you for putting your values into action to create the equitable and sustainable food future we need. We look forward to continuing this vital work with you in 2026 and beyond.
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Photos by Foodwise