"What The Market Means To The Community:" The Westport Farmers' Market Celebrates 20 Years

The word “community” has many different definitions and everyone’s personal definition of “community” differs.

As it pertains to the Westport Farmers Market (or any farmers market for that matter), one of those definitions, “a sharing in common,” rings true.

If you’ve taken a stroll through the WFM these past 20 years, whether it was at the market’s original location in the Westport Country Playhouse’s parking lot, or in the present at the Imperial Avenue lot, and in the winter at Gilbertie’s Herb Gardens, community, and connection, are noticeable all around.

Connecting farmers to customers, farmers to purveyors, chefs to farmers, and vice versa every which way, it’s exactly what co-founders, the legendary actor, philanthropist, and Westport resident Paul Newman and esteemed James Beard award-winning chef Michel Nischan had in mind when they started it two decades ago.

The market—now under the direction of Lori Cochran-Dougall and a board of directors for 17 years and counting—has since grown tenfold to include 60-something registered vendors, some of them permanent, that includes farmers, bakeries, distilleries, breweries, mobile restaurants, cheese and fish mongers, knife sharpening, you name it, it’s probably there.

For all of 2026, visitors to the market should expect a celebratory year filled with different events and entertainment, plus, the WFM’s usual programming. But most of all, what will continue is what the market builds on a weekly basis: relationships with food and with each other.

Cochran-Dougall with Newman and Nischan

Contributed by Westport Farmers Market

During their 20th season, I felt it best to capture unscripted interviews with farmers, vendors, chefs, customers, and board members, asking them one question: “What does the Westport Farmers Market mean to you?”

Please enjoy! And here’s to another 20 years and beyond!

westportfarmersmarket.com

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