Pike Place Market

Pike Place Market is located at the Elliott Bay waterfront in Seattle, Washington.

It is a globally recognized farmer’s market in the world. More than 10 million visitors come to tour the Pike Place Market annually and it is home to 500 residents.  This market provides spaces for the small farmers as well as crafts people and merchants. The market was built in a hill, where variety of merchants and shops such as graphic T-shirts sellers, comic book sellers, cultural decorations sellers, restaurants, and street artists. Most of the products are home brewed and freshly delivered from their farms. Fishes are directly delivered from the harbor when they are caught. So most of the products are organic and market owners have competition to attract more tourists and customers. Before the founding of the market, there used to be a whole sale house to resell farmers’ products to the public. Farmers had no time to directly sell their products to the public, so they received commission and made contract with the middle men. Most of the time, farmers could only make little incentives or break even because of the middle men’s privilege in the wholesale market system. As a result, farmers protested and gained their rights to open up their own market on the street to directly sell their products. This encouraged most of the local farmers to participate in this practice and gained more profits and incentives without having to go through middle men’s business. This farmer’s market continued to grow aggressively which created today’s Pike Place Market.

Link: Pike Place Market