Lancaster Central Market, Pennsylvania

Lancaster Central Market
Originally uploaded by rllayman

This market is an example of the necessity of master planning and creating a market-based business plan to maintain and extend the competitiveness of a public market in terms of supporting local foodways, business development, and a strong market district, in the face of competition from traditional supermarkets.

The Lancaster area has a great number of independent supermarkets, although coverage from chains as well. I was surprised at how price competitive the small independents were. E.g., the two store Weaver's Super Market chain in Lancaster County has prices much lower than Safeway and Giant in the DC region.

The Lancaster Central Market master plan is online.

I mention this because for all intents and purposes, Eastern Market in DC does not have a master plan, and the market and the surrounding area isn't being adequately "planned" in a manner that works to maintain and extend the Market's competitiveness.

Harris Teeter is in the process of opening two large markets east and west of Eastern Market, and I think that this will be crushing, especially given that H-T will be open 7 days/week, and much later into the evening.

We all think of Lancaster County in terms of the Amish (and the movie "Witness") but I was surprised to see the variety of ethnic cuisines represented in the market, other than the Pennsylvania Dutch. There were two Hispanic booths, West African, Greek, Thai, and more. There were a few booths specializing in organic produce. Another was a catering group. And another booth was run by a woman producing high quality baby food using local ingredients.

And the prices were fantastic. Of course, that makes sense because this market is in the heart of an agricultural region. Many of the booths are run by farms.