Backroads Family Farm Market is run by Danielle and Alicia Guichon. They began as entrepreneurs from a very young age, first selling their family’s corn door-to-door in their neighbourhood, and then selling produce at the Ladner Village Market. They were the market’s youngest vendors!

In 2009 they set up a seasonal roadside stand on Arthur Drive with a pop-up tent and 8-10 items. They’ve been steadily growing friendships with customers and suppliers ever since. Wanting to grow the business, they reopened a farm stand, that sat vacant for over 15 years, located on 52nd Street that their family had built and run in the 1980’s. They reopened the location that holds so many memories not only for them, but for also for the community that remember shopping there in the 1980s and 1990s. The market provides local produce in season, as well as other fresh fruits, veggies and local goods.

Question: How are you supporting other local businesses?

Answer: We strive to bring our customers the utmost quality and freshness from local sources. We take pride in the community we live in and support local farmers as much as possible, when possible. We stock local products whenever we can. We work with more than 30 vendors, and 80-90% of our inventory is from B.C. – the other 10-20% of products are sourced elsewhere for the convenience of our customers, but can’t be grown in Canada. We use 100% local service providers! This includes all our accounting & bookkeeping, banking & financial services, construction, consulting education & training, IT services, media (advertising, etc.), professional services and repair & maintenance providers.

Question: What social practices are you proud of? 

Answer: Since we’re a seasonal operation, we don’t have full-time employees, but we hire many part-timers in the summer. We’re proud that we’re able to provide great first time jobs for local kids. We are also committed to buying from local farmers, so we’re proud that we are able to use our purchasing to support local agriculture, as well as families in our area, and help our customers with access to the best quality local products. We also directly support other small businesses in our community with mutually beneficial sales of their products at our market, like our fresh baked breads and pies from a bakery in Ladner, run by a Ladner family.

Question: What environmental practices are you proud of?

Answer: Supporting local suppliers drastically reduces the number of miles it takes for ingredients to travel to get to our customer’s plate, so we’re helping reduce emissions by buying and selling local products. We have chickens and pigs that prosper from all of our local compost and ‘waste’ from the market. While composting is excellent, feeding our animals is another great outlet to reduce our waste at the market.