Photos by Ryan Donahue

Just south of Broadway on 5th Street, in an area of warehouses dwarfed by the Channel 10 TV tower, is a collection of old wooden buildings that you might think is abandoned. The sign reading "Produce Market" is a bit dilapidated and the parking area is bumpy and unpaved. But except for the brightly logoed trucks of Produce Express clustered on one side, it's easy to miss this last holdout of the cooperatives that once marked Sacramento as the hub of West Coast agriculture.

As early as the 1860s, agriculture was the principle economy in the Delta. Grain was then the largest crop in the area, followed by orchard fruit and truck farms producing potatoes and onions. Many of the farm laborers were Chinese, both as hired hands and tenant farmers. According to the 1940 Census, more than 1 million tons of sugar beets and almost 800,000 tons of barley were harvested in this area. The 1944 California Farm Home magazine boasted that Sacramento "has four canning plants, three of which are the world's largest."

Before there were commodity boards that required farmers to pay a fee based on their production, growers had opt-in associations. As the magazine noted, "California marketing associations, in addition to providing an outlet for products, have numerous services of assistance to farmers in providing advice and in cooperative purchasing of feed, equipment, and supplies." The Mutual Producers Association and the Northern California Berry Growers' Association were two such groups. In the 1930s, they and individual growers and related businesses formed what was then called the Sacramento Farmers' Market on the grounds of what is the current-day wholesale Sacramento Produce Market.

Before then, the Sacramento Farmers' Market was primarily a public market for growers to sell their produce directly to consumers. In the early 1930s, Elder Cecchettini and other local growers decided to band together to buy shares at $5 a piece--each family buying what they could afford. In a show of cross-cultural cooperation, Italian, Portuguese, and Japanese farmers raised about $50,000 to buy the 6.85 acres of land occupied by the market. Farmers who didn't buy in were still allowed to sell at the market, since each vendor paid a small fee each time they backed into the stalls to sell.

There were, of course, other farmers' markets in Sacramento at the time: one on 8th Street between S and T and another at 30th Street between R and S. That one ran on Wednesdays and Saturdays until 1986 and was called the Farmers' Free Market. But only the Sacramento Farmers' Market on 5th has survived to this day, transformed into a wholesale operation.

In the 1930s, it was still a large mix of small companies. The 1939 Sacramento City Directory lists nineteen vendors at 2630 5th Street, including General Produce and Fish Co., Inukai Company for fertilizer, Meredith Fish Co., Tamura Produce, and Pitts Produce Co. There was also a listing for Market Grill--the first iteration of the semi-secret diner that serves customers today as the Market Club.

There were still quite a few Japanese farmers at the market then, before World War II. Even after many of them had lost their businesses during the internment, some were able to come back and sell at the market. But in the 1970s, Safeway closed a large distribution center that had served as an outlet for many growers. Some left farming for other work, while some were able to consolidate or modernize in order to survive. Today, there are more Vietnamese and Chinese farmers in the larger wholesale businesses at the current-day Produce Market.

Elder Cecchettini--one of the founders of the market corporation--and his family eventually formed Chick's Produce, which has been selling wholesale since 1949. His son Wayne joined in 1964 and continues today as the de facto historian of the market. Their company is in what used to be the Meredith Fish Co., which had large coolers to store the seafood. As the growers were forced to modernize in order to stay in business, Chick's developed a niche market by converting some of the coolers into avocado pre-conditioning chambers. In cooperation with some aerospace engineers who were also avocado growers, they developed rooms in which ethylene gas could be piped in to hasten ripening of the fruit. At the time, being able to offer perfectly ripe avocados to the grocery stores was a big step in the produce business. In markets today, you can usually find some ready-to-eat avocados mixed in with unripe fruit, to meet both customer demand and market economics.

Another longtime tenant at the market is Pompei Produce Co. Romeo Pompei Sr. was originally a salesman for Pitts Produce in the old farmers' market. Now his son Romeo Pompei Jr. runs the company that specializes in potatoes and onions for wholesale delivery to restaurants. They and the other wholesalers at the market have had their business change dramatically with the year-round availability of produce. Seasons were much more limited before hydro-cooling of produce extended its shelf life. (That's why we eat perfectly good apples in the spring and summer that were harvested the prior fall.) And growers developed new varieties of fruits and vegetables that thrived in weather conditions previously untenable for them.

The one tenant at the market who really deals just with local farmers is Produce Express. They specialize in working with restaurants to provide top-quality products sourced from nearby farms. Started in the 1980s from owner Jim Boyce's garage, Produce Express has been at the 5th Street location since 1993. Former chef Jim Mills, who now works with them, has become something of a celebrity within the food community, known for his vast knowledge and ability to get just about anything a chef desires. Produce Express has grown rapidly over the past few years along with the boom in restaurant openings and the increased consumer interest in local produce.

So why stay at the slightly dilapidated location? Now, of course, businesses face high transportation costs that can sometimes exceed the cost of the products they're shipping. That and the relatively low rent and easy access to both downtown and the freeways makes the location still very desirable. And there's the Market Club tucked among the mix of wholesalers. With its old brick façade and U-shaped bar, it's a great hideaway for those in the know. Now owned by Jimmy and Mona Sakata, the restaurant was once owned by the Tomita family for 27 years. While it used to have a full bar back in its heyday, it has come to specialize in hearty breakfasts and lunches with an Asian flavor. Longtime fans make the pilgrimage there for short ribs on Tuesdays and "wienie royale," a stir-fry of eggs, rice, and chopped-up hot dogs. All the produce they use is, of course, super fresh and sourced right next door.

So despite a need to modernize with electronic ordering and high-end cooling systems, the Sacramento Produce Market has still retained an old-fashioned feel in some ways. It's a nice connection to the agricultural history of our area, proving that fancy, expensive new surroundings aren't necessary for delivering fresh, quality produce to consumers--all that's needed are dedicated farmers and distributors, as we've had there for more than 75 years.

Ann is a culinary consultant and gourmand in Sacramento. You can find her local food discoveries on www.sacatomato.com. She is the author of Hands-Off Cooking: Low-Supervision, High-Flavor Meals for Busy People.