Located amid food trucks, a beer garden and the pump track, the Twin Sisters Mobile Market is a novelty at the Portal Container Village. The pop-up, mobile farmers market is open from 4–7 p.m. Wednesdays, selling everything from fruit and veggies to meat, eggs, bread, flowers and other goods — all of which are produced in Whatcom County.
Farmers markets have a reputation for being financially inaccessible, but despite appearances, Executive Director Cat Sieh said Twin Sisters is far from a boutique market. In fact, the Portal’s centralized location is an anomaly for the nonprofit. Its other three pop-up locations — Kendall, Deming and Bellingham’s Birchwood neighborhood — are classified as either low-access food areas or food deserts by the U.S. Department of Agriculture.
As for the Portal location, “We basically said, ‘Well, we could use the exposure in town,’” Sieh explained. “Since we work primarily in rural areas, a lot of folks don’t know our markets yet, even though we’ve been around.”
Twin Sisters was founded in 2015 in response to the Foothills Food Summit, a conference addressing longstanding food access challenges in East Whatcom County. From the beginning, Sieh said the market’s mission was twofold: “To increase access to locally-grown, wholesome food, and to support the success of the Whatcom County farmers that grow it.”
Volunteer farmers operated Twin Sisters as a roadside stand until 2022, when a grant enabled them to hire Sieh as its first part-time paid employee. Last year, the organization built a customized mobile market truck thanks to a Washington State Department of Agriculture infrastructure grant. But even with scaled-up operations, Sieh describes Twin Sisters as a “teeny tiny nonprofit” — and its slim advertising budget goes toward spreading awareness about the market’s food access programs.
“Competing with local food prices is probably our number one challenge,” she said. “What we’ve tried to do is offset the high costs, because we’re taking this really high-quality — and therefore higher-priced — food into areas that are by definition low-income.”
Twin Sisters partners with community organizations like the Whatcom Council on Aging to provide vouchers for low-income seniors. And with the SNAP Market Match program, customers using EBT cards receive 50% off each purchase, with no spending limit. Sieh said the SNAP Market Match program allows Twin Sisters to compete with low produce prices of “giant grocers” like Winco, without undercutting farmers or the market’s bottom line.
Each pop-up market is easily accessible and adapted to the neighborhood’s needs. For example, the Deming market happens at the Deming Shell station adjacent to the Nooksack Tribal offices, where highway traffic slows after Mt. Baker High School. The Kendall market is at the North Fork Library, a community location at a heavily-trafficked roundabout.
In 2021, Twin Sisters began operating the Birchwood Farmers Market, first formed by City Sprouts Farm in 2017 and inspired by Twin Sisters’ model of “bringing multiple farmers together under one roof.” In addition to being walkable, its location in the Liberty Tax Northwest parking lot functions as a “drive-through” market for seniors and residents with disabilities.
“We just … go wherever it is most convenient for residents that we serve,” Sieh continued.
In early 2024, Sieh received a news release from the Port of Bellingham calling for farmers market vendors. Twin Sisters already had the infrastructure, so she saw it as a way to widen the market’s reach and trial-run a weekday pop-up.
The Portal market hasn’t been without hiccups, as it often conflicts with Downtown Sounds. But despite varied turnout, Sieh said its urban location has generated new interest in Twin Sisters’ broader food access work.
The location also resulted in a partnership with the port. Thanks to their sponsorship, unsold goods are paid for and donated to Bellingham Technical College’s student food pantry.
“We’re basically a zero-waste market at this point, because we do donate all unsold produce to local food banks,” Sieh said. “And we do that through our produce buyback program, which … for each location, we seek funding to actually compensate the market for those donations, and that’s part of what lets us stay out there in a tough marketplace.”
Operating in Bellingham has allowed Sieh to observe the nuances of Whatcom County’s shopping habits. She said urban customers are often more interested in labels denoting ethical production, whereas food culture in the county is more “trust-based, like you’re shopping from your neighbors.”
But these customer bases also have similarities: “I think there are many ways to shop and to feed your family ethically — and to do that on a budget is really challenging regardless of where you live,” Sieh said. “So we’re trying to really help bridge that gap.”
The market is scheduled to be open at the Portal Container Village at 298 W. Laurel Street until Sept. 25.
Info: twinsistersmarkets.com.
Cocoa Laney is CDN’s lifestyle editor; reach her at cocoalaney@cascadiadaily.com; 360-922-3090 ext. 128.
