We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Aaron Menke. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Aaron below.

Aaron, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. What’s the backstory behind how you came up with the idea for your business?

Our business started when I noticed there was not a farmers market with fruits and veggies in downtown Katy.

Our first market was in 2018 at Faith West Academy where I attended for elementary.

I ended up taking a job in Waco, TX so the market was cancelled.

We moved back to the Houston area during COVID. We thought that a new market might help vendors keep their business going during the pandemic.

We told vendors that they did not have to pay a fee. We just wanted to help keep the local economy going while everything was shut down. This time the market was at Stableside in Falcon Landing in June 2020.

In Summer of 2021 we opened 3 more locations and were running 7-9 markets a month.

In 2022 we renamed our business from Katy Farmers Market to Local Market Maker. We now have markets outside of Katy and hope to expand throughout Katy. We specialize in setting up markets neighborhoods that have a community center and have lots of amenities for their residents.

Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers

Vendors like they way we manage our markets because we make it easy to apply and we operate on a donation based payment instead of a set market fees. This makes for more of a partnership with the vendors.

Have you ever had to pivot?

We were not booking many farmer vendors so we had to adjust our whole business. Our dream was to have a farmers market in its truest form but the best thing for the business was to be more inclusive to all types of vendors.

The markets still have farm vendors but the markets cater more to locally made and handmade/grown products.

How did you build your audience on social media?

For a couple of years we were not running our market but we kept the social media going. We continued to build an audience even while the market was on hold.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.localmarketmaker.com/
• Instagram: Localmarketmaker
• Facebook: Localmarketmaker

Image Credits
Aaron Menke Hailey Nelson