Lions Farmers Market — Local services in Mississauga

The best of Mississauga's Farmers Markets is back every Sunday morning until the end of October. What makes it the best isn't that it's the city's largest Farmers market, but the treasures to be found in in. It is in the parking lot of the Mississauga Executive Centre on Shipp Dr., near Rathburn. This market hosted by the Lions Club starts at 8am, and goes until at least 3, but weather, and crowd size can affect when vendors start leaving. It's best to get there early to be sure your favourite products aren't sold out. Lots of great previous vendors have returned, and there are a few special new ones. You can still get great southern European style meats with exotic ingredients like bison at one vendor, and northern European style meats from another for those who really love garlic and kelbassa. Try the kangaroo pepperettes from the one in the middle, and the Krakovska from the little trailer in the back. If you have kids the kabanosy from the little trailer makes a great healthy snack with a subtle flavour. The mushroom farmers are back with their selection which includes rare mushrooms picked from the wild. Keep your eyes out for when they get lobster mushrooms. Slice up the lobster mushrooms, and fry them up in butter and garlic to make a dish difficult to distinguish from actual lobster. Aperagus and rhubarb lovers will find several farmers with very satisfyingly thick crops out now. The kettle corn vendor is back, and has a new flavour! Yes his popcorn cost a little more than the grocery store, but it is so much better! When you smell them cooking up a batch, get yourself a warm bag of it, and try it while it's still hot for a fantastic snack a league above movie popcorn. If you're picky about your maple syrup be sure to try a bottle from Doug & Diane McPhial's farm. Lot's of other previous vendors are also back making sure that there is competitive pricing on farm fresh food. A great new addition to the market this year is a sheppard. He has meat for sale of course, but it's his sheep milk products that are extremely hard to find elsewhere. We enjoyed his baked milk yogourt on it's own, even more with chopped fruit, but adding some crab apple jam found at the McPhial's stand brought it up to that dreamy kind of blend foodies search out. His cheeses are fantastic, and easily on par with any your can find at Cheese Boutique. His products are not cheap, but those used to paying extra for quality will be well satisfied. The market has other new comers for you to discover as well. If you like locally sourced food, great deals, or the highest quality products you will find them all here. Sunday morning find your way to the market, and enjoy a stroll munching on the plentiful samples as you do your shopping. This market is a gem waiting for...

I love this market and have been going for over 15 years. It's not cheap by any means as you are paying for quality. I am always happy to pay for produce that is worth the money, and I know it's going directly to the farmer. Often they have product you can't get at the regular grocer.

Beware the stall at the back corner! I was buying beautiful long red radishes, red onions from a super helpful and friendly vendor at that stall. I temporarily walked away from the guy to go through a box of beautiful Swiss Chard, and Tuscan kale which I had spotted earlier and gone through but was not ready to make a choice. The head Papa farmer, who usually does the unpacking of the produce, came out from behind his table, and came right up to me and started to berate me in the most angry voice, and raging eyes,"This is not the first time you go through, it's the second!" I defended my actions by saying I always leave it tidy and I'm delicate with the produce. The bin of bunched greens is out in front of the produce table where we're supposed to help ourselves to the bunch we're paying top dollar for. Of course I'm going to go through the bin!!

I walked away from mad farmer. When helpful, friendly and smiling vendor spotted me he ask if I was ready to pay? I responded back,"No thank you! That guy doesn't want me shopping here!". I noticed the Mama farmer wasn't around last week to keep him under control. So much for the friendly reputation of this Market!!

I return today for my weekly trip to notice they no longer place bins out front and Mama farmer is back. Didn't buy anything from them today and will avoid this stall in the future. Can't risk the volatile temper of Papa. And there are plenty of other vendors at this market.

Instead, dealt with the lovely vendor at Thames Valley Melons (right across) where I bought squash blossoms for top dollar. The man was so patient while I picked out the boxes I wanted. The blossoms were female blossoms attached to not just zucchini, but also summer squash, and patty pan squash. He was so nice, I had to buy 3 boxes! I knew just the right person who would enjoy this beautiful produce.

Last week was the first time I've ever experienced this kind of rude, angry and aggressive behaviour. No one likes paying top dollar to a rude vendor. Papa should just stay behind the scenes and let the others sell the produce for him.

As the reviews say, this is a friendly market with beautiful produce. Many vendors have nice relationships with their customers who return again and again, season after season, year after year. It was 5 stars before...

I see a lot of people complaining about two things; there’s not a lot of actual farmers and you can’t tell the real from the fake, and that it’s too expensive. I’ve literally been going here for what seems like my entire life, or at least a good majority of it. You can tell if the vendor is a real farmer by the license plate on their truck (it’ll say farmer) and their hands. They won’t have pretty hands if they’re actually farming, most likely they’ll have short nails, possibly dirty over all from harvesting. And it isn’t in any way expensive. If you go to get wild blueberries, yes, they’re more expensive than the larger ones, but that’s about it. The only “bad” experience I’ve ever had is people trying to negotiate the already cheap prices down at the vendor I go to all the time, and the crowds. I also did prefer when It was over by cineplex or in the square one parking lot but that’s not changeable now. But other than that, it’s a great place where I bring my dog almost all the time to walk around and socialize as I get my fresh produce. Also, most of the real farmers either freeze their food for next time, or donate it at the end of the day, it’s a great thing for the community but f you don’t like the prices, just go to a store and pay for something that...