South Carolina set to open new wholesale produce market

One of the newest Southeastern wholesale produce markets is preparing to open in Columbia, S.C.

Courtesy South Carolina Department of Agriculture

A new wholesale market is set to open in Columbia, S.C. When it opens, the South Carolina State Farmers Market and Agribusiness Center will be one of the newest markets in the Southeast.

The South Carolina State Farmers Market and Agribusiness Center, which will host wholesale produce operations as well as a farmers’ market, is scheduled to open in phases tentatively planned to start in mid-August.

Martin Eubanks, senior commodity merchandiser for the South Carolina Department of Agriculture, Columbia, said the opening date for wholesale operations was scheduled for Aug. 16 but may be changed after some of the smaller wholesalers have requested a delayed opening.

Delayed from an April opening date, Eubanks said the state is trying to work with the wholesalers to find a more suitable opening.

The 170-acre site is close to exits off Interstate 26 and Interstate 77.

“The old market was built in the 1950s,” Eubanks said. “It was very dated. This new one will be all state-of-the-art from the food safety points of view and will feature modern, cutting edge produce wholesaling facilities.”

Eubanks said the new operation, which is seven miles from the older site located in the downtown area on Bluff Street across from the National Guard armory and University of South Carolina football stadium, is being constructed by a private developer through a public-private partnership and will offer distributors and market customers more space.

Similar to the Atlanta State Farmers Market in Forest Park, Ga., the South Carolina operation will have produce wholesale buildings on one side of the site with seasonal and year-round retail local produce sales conducted through open-air farmers markets sheds on the opposite end, he said.

Most of the wholesalers such as V.B. Hook & Co. Inc. and Senn Bros. Inc. and Lexington, S.C.-based leafy greens grower-shipper Clayton Rawls Farms Inc., are scheduled to make the move, Eubanks said.

The complex will also feature a 400-seat amphitheater, a large exhibition kitchen for cooking demonstrations, a children’s playground, a school bus stop, a meat and seafood market, restaurants such as a specialty food market with café, a bakery, an RV park as well as state agriculture department laboratories and offices.

Read more about the market at scstatefarmersmarket.com