Downtown Farm Stand is Now Open Sundays!

The Downtown Farm Stand has joined Blue Bottle and White River Landing in offering Sunday hours.

Downtown Farm Stand is located at 125 E Main St, at the corner of Main and Mulberry streets in Downtown Muncie. Hours are Monday thru Saturday, 10:00 am-7:00 pm, and Sunday 12 - 5 pm. Call 765-288-3775 for more info.

From the Downtown Farm Stand newsletter:

We have a lot of parking available right on Main street in front of our door, also in the two hour city lot right behind the building with access off of Jackson, and in the surrounding parking lots. If you need help finding these areas, just ask! Many people find we are very convenient if you need to get in and out quickly and do not have time to walk through a big parking lot and wander through a huge store. You can always find a friendly face to ask for help!

Open Sundays 12- 5 pm! - Did you know that Sundays are the second busiest shopping day of the week? Neither did I until I read it recently. We had been debating for a while, but it's just became obvious that we needed to be open on Sundays. We look forward to filling your weekend needs for high quality local organic food. We need to be open as much as possible now because we want to generate income to open our commercial kitchen to have a deli and to begin to collect a much needed paycheck for our work here. Opening on the second busiest shopping day of the week is a good place to start to ramp up business.

Equipment - We are on the lookout for kitchen equipment for our deli. I have been an extremely lucky scrounger thus far and have been able to find almost all of our equipment for free. The tough economic times mean that a lot of businesses come and go, and so far we have been able to find a lot of things. We hope to continue to do so, so help us out with any tips that you have. We are specifically looking for ...
* An electric flat top griddle with an oven
* 2- 4 Cafe tables and chairs
* A reach in produce cooler
* Stainless steel tables and sinks

Local Produce - It's that time of year when our shelves become more and more stocked with local food. We're enjoying local pears and apples, peppers and tomatoes, zucchini and okra, onions, garlic, and potatoes, and just about anything else that grows nearby. All of our producers are friends and neighbors, people we know and trust. Folks that raise food with respect for the environment and for the people eating it, and for the animals they raise. We hope you can take advantage of this local bounty and enjoy the many great foods available. As one of our customers put it, "It may be local food week around the country, but every week is local food week at The Downtown Farm Stand." Hey that's the idea, right?


Food For Thought - An Open Letter to the Delaware County Commissioners

Tuesday of this week I had this letter submitted for the record and Julie Alexander read it for me at the County Commissioners meeting since I had to work at the store. It says some things I thought you all might be interested in:


Hello, I am Dave Ring, a resident of Delaware County, owner of Ring Family Farm, and owner of The Downtown Farm Stand in Muncie.
The Downtown Farm Stand is a grocery store that specializes in locally produced organic and sustainable food such as 100% grass fed meats and dairy products, pastured poultry, organic and local fruits and vegetables, local honey, grains, and hand crafted items. In a recent planing commission meeting Chairman David Howell suggested that there were no alternatives to Confined Animal Feeding Operations, industrial agriculture, and the subsequent poisoning of our environment. He suggested that to say otherwise would mean going back to the days of "Ma and Pa Kettle".

I would like to inform the commissioners that there is indeed a thriving alternative in Delaware County. With no assistance from any government entities and built only through the sheer demand of it's local citizens and the hard work and of it's producers, Delaware County now has the beginning of a local sustainable food system.

It is our goal to take advantage of the fastest growing segment of agriculture in the United States of America for the last 15 years - organic and sustainable farming. With our local industrial economy having long ago failed, we are dependent only on the existence of Ball State University - the saving grace of our community. With the national economy lagging in large part due to the increased expenses of natural resources, it is our belief that it is necessary to begin the production of our food closer to home in a sustainable method that uses far fewer petroleum products. There is no better time than now.

We can be a leader in the state of Indiana in sustainable agriculture. We can attract investment, put people to work, and rehabilitate our family farmsteads by putting families back onto the land. Sustainable organic farming is the perfect compliment to an education based community. High -value sustainable agriculture with many value added spin-off businesses is the key to building local economies.
The most important step in that process today is to make sure that this area remains viable for organic and sustainable agriculture by voting for a C.A.F.O. moratorium which would enable us to adhere to USDA guidelines in all parts of the county for organic agriculture. I implore you today to to think positively of our future and vote yes for a moratorium on new confined animal feeding operations in Delaware County.

Thank you for your consideration,

David Ring



We hope that they listen and pass the moratorium. At any rate we had to give it a shot.

That's about it for this week, we hope to see you at the store!

Please tell them you saw it on munciedowntown.com