Editor’s note: We are sad to report that Farmers Republic has closed.
There’s a lot of talk about revolution in Greece these days. We have a new left-wing government that promises to shake up the establishment both here and abroad, cutting costs by drastically reducing ministerial perks like private guards and official automobiles, reinstating lost jobs and shorn pensions, upping the minimum wage … and seeking alternative ways of handling Greek debt. Our young PM and some of his closest associates are even flouting officialdom’s time-honored dress code by speaking in parliament, Brussels and Bonn without ties and with flapping shirttails.
But for a revolution based less on words than on deeds one need look no further than Farmers Republic. With its eye-catching logo – a bright red tomato with a star cut out of its center and red-stenciled letters on the rough blond pine of a simple vegetable crate – the symbolism is clear: this is a market with a difference.
The difference can be measured in several ways. To start with, in a city that delights in its weekly neighborhood open-air markets, Farmers Republic is the first to operate in a single, covered spot all day, every day, except Sunday. Furthermore, all of the fresh fruits and vegetables on sale are certified organic, and it also offers a wide range – somewhere between 2,000 and 3,000 – of other goods, including fish, meat, wine, legumes, pasta, cheeses, honeys, oils, sauces, herbs, breads, biscuits, nuts … you name it, which if not organic are sustainably produced. The shop operates on two spacious floors, covering 1,200 square meters, just outside Nea Erythraia in the northern suburbs.
Americans will be reminded of the Whole Foods chain, Londoners of Borough Market, which in fact inspired the man who founded Farmers Republic, 29-year-old Dimitris Koutsolioutsos.
Koutsolioutsos greeted us at one of the desks in the open-plan office floor, above the vegetable stands. “My dream was to create a bridge between producers and consumers, eliminating the middlemen, who rip off the farmers and pass on a huge markup to the customers. This is where the real revolution lies. By empowering farmers, facilitating their access to markets in fair-trade terms, we were making a break with an entrenched system that even the unionized left does not approve of.
“The idea came about gradually. It all began with my family’s organic vegetable garden in central Evia. I used to bring stuff back to my colleagues at work, and they loved the quality and freshness. When I realized that other farmers out there had no access to markets, I thought of a way to connect their goods directly with individual households. You’ve heard of the Gine Agrotis [Become a Farmer] movement? That was me. I arranged a way for people to sign up for a basket of fresh, organic fruit and veg that would be delivered to their homes every week. The only trouble was that you never knew what you’d be getting, it was so dependent on the weather, but it became very popular.”
Meanwhile, the organic movement is growing fast, despite a noticeable lack of encouragement by the state, and organic farmers markets have sprung up in various locations outside the center of Athens. We learned to our surprise only recently that there is no legal framework for these markets and that the city’s mayor does not allow them, even though most of the vendors are accredited.
In our traditional laiki agora – literally “people’s” open-air market – only a small portion of the vendors are actually producers/growers themselves. Most represent distributors or middlemen.
“Here at Farmers Republic, though,” went on Koutsolioutsos, “we offer farmers a lot more than just a sheltered, day-long shop. We can help them get their organic certification, we have an agronomist they can consult and we give them access to our e-shop, which opens up sales possibilities enormously. For example, we’ve begun taking orders from all over the EU and Switzerland, and UPS delivers them within 24 hours. We have regular customers in, say, Geneva or London who miss the taste of Greek vegetables, and even with the cost of shipping, they’re cheaper and fresher than the tomatoes or lemons they’ll find next door.”
We thought of writing about Farmers Republic when it opened in December 2013 to a lot of fanfare but are glad we waited. Ten months later, in October 2014, it moved from a rather remote, hard-to-find location in Kryo Neri to a much more accessible site on a major avenue.
Besides offering convenience and practically all the kinds of goods you’d find in a commercial supermarket, Farmers Republic is fun. On Saturdays they often hold special presentations, most recently a range of products from Kythera, an island known for its honey, sea salt, olive oil and paximadia (rusks), and a local cheese maker. They’re also on track to reopen their kitchen with a new chef and acquire a license for wine tasting. They even host occasional music events, storytelling hour for kids, seminars and lectures, and our guess is that it will soon become a place to meet as well as shop.
It’s also a lot more attractive than any supermarket, with rustic décor in the same style as the logo, which includes bales of hay by the stairs and cheery red vegetable crates and crazily placed wooden slats on the walls. The young vendors and employees are engaging and casual, happy to chat or explain. They have the enthusiasm that comes with an absence of hierarchy. As one of Koutsolioutsos’s assistants, Ilias Demiris, explained, “We work a bit in the startup mentality here, so we get to know every aspect of the business. And we’re like a community, a family. Full of ideas for making Farmers Republic even better.”
Before we leave, we put a few items into our own shopping basket: marinated smoked trout, a French-style saucisson sec from Evrytania, a half-dozen ugly but superb Fuji apples and a fistful of herb packets. The herbs attract our attention because they double as postcards. What an original idea! You can “send a scent” courtesy of Farmers Republic – “organic thyme and oregano for traditional Greek stuffed vegetables,” for example – to friends who miss Greece, picked and packed by Naxos-based Organic Islands.
We think we’ll be heading back soon, to see what else is new and to browse the shelves of all those interesting products.
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