Friday night we set up our first ever farmers market booth at the Elmer Farmers Market at Lost Elephant Brewing Company. We did not know exactly what to expect. What we got was a warm, genuine community welcome that we will not forget.

Thank you to everyone who stopped by. Thank you for the conversations, the questions, and the support. For a farm that has been selling online and at the farmstand since we started, standing in a market and talking face to face with the people who buy our food was something different. It was exactly what we had hoped it would be.

Who Was Behind the Booth

I worked the market alongside Trevor, Sidney, and her boyfriend Zack. The four of us set up the booth, managed orders, and talked with customers throughout the evening. It was a family effort in the truest sense. We hope everyone who stopped by felt welcome and found us easy to talk to — that is something we care about and will keep working on at every market.

What the Evening Was Like

The Elmer Farmers Market is put on by South Jersey Preservation and the setting at Lost Elephant Brewing Company worked beautifully. Customers moved naturally between the market and the brewery — the kind of easy, unhurried Friday evening energy that makes a farmers market feel like an event rather than just a shopping trip. Good attendance, good conversations, and the kind of community feel that you cannot manufacture.

We met other local farmers at the market — neighbors in the truest sense, people raising food on the same South Jersey land we work every day. That part was genuinely enjoyable. The farming community in this region is small enough that these connections matter.

The Products

Beef was the clear leader — steaks, roasts, and ground beef all moved well. We also had strong interest in our pasture-raised chicken and lamb. The conversations around each product were some of the best parts of the evening. People genuinely wanted to know how the animals were raised, what the difference between grain-finished and grass-finished means, why we chose Hereford-Angus, what our chickens eat on pasture. These are the conversations that do not happen through a website and they are exactly why we wanted to do markets.

A lot of people were discovering Mad Horse Meats for the first time Friday night. That is the real value of a farmers market — not just serving existing customers but meeting people who had never heard of us and giving them a reason to care about where their food comes from.

Next Market — Woodstown, May 14

We are back at it on Thursday May 14 at the Woodstown Farmers Market — behind Farmers & Bankers Brewing in the parking lot between the brewery and the Blue Moon Opera House at 8 N Main Street, Woodstown NJ. Same hours, 5 to 8pm. Same team. Same products.

If you could not make it to Elmer this is your next chance to find us in person. And if you want to guarantee we have what you are looking for you can order online at madhorsemeats.com and pick up at our booth — no minimum purchase, no shipping charges. Order by midnight the Tuesday before the market and your order will be packed and ready when you arrive.