"Look, I don't want to make anybody mad, but is it so hard to pick up the phone?" he asked plaintively. "Can't they call us up the day before and say, 'Hey are you coming down tomorrow? Could you bring some peas?' "
The issue goes well beyond mere convenience. Farming is a business that runs on highly perishable stock, and when something is harvested it must be sold quickly, particularly when it's as fragile as English peas, which start to turn from sweet to starchy within hours of being picked. Peas that don't get sold are good only for compost.
"Someone calls in an order, and that's a sale that's already made and paid for as far as I'm concerned," McGrath explained. "When I bring something to the market and put it out on the table, that's a gamble. I don't know whether I'll sell those or not."
One of the most constant of the commercial shoppers at the Wednesday market is Karen Beverlin of FreshPoint. Her company ships produce from the Santa Monica Farmers' Market all over the country, including to restaurants in Las Vegas and New York. But Beverlin said 90% of its sales are in Southern California, to customers as varied as Providence restaurant and the USC dining hall.
"I think we're helping the family farmers who come to the market, and isn't that what it's all about?" she said. "I don't haggle about prices with the farmers I buy from. . . . In most cases, I'm paying exactly the same prices for most of what I buy as you would if you just walked up to the table.
"We do want the farmers markets to remain vibrant, and I think we're helping that on multiple levels: We're helping them economically, we're encouraging a vibrant community and we're giving chefs access to high-quality, local, seasonal produce, much of it sustainably grown, even if they can't come to the farmers market every week. How can that be bad?"
Caught in the middle is Santa Monica market manager Laura Avery, who has run the operation since 1982, just a year after it opened.
"There is certainly a wide range of opinions among farmers, among chefs and among the produce companies," she said. "They're all trying to get more small-farm produce into restaurants, which is great. But we want to be sure to keep stuff on the tables for regular customers and smaller restaurants who come every week."
One idea Avery has been considering is separating the wholesale activity from the main market -- allowing it either before the 9 a.m. opening or at a different location.
"We're all of us interested in helping the farmers, but we need to separate the two," Avery said. "That's what has to happen in a very nice, positive kind of way. Certainly, we're victims of too much good stuff, of too many happy customers. But I think we can make it work."
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russ.parsons@latimes.com
