Gig Harbor farm featured in new Main and Vine store

Jess and Scott Hogan are known on the Gig Harbor Farmers market scene.

The owners of Artondale Farm are regulars at the Saturday market at Peninsula Gardens and the Sunday market in Uptown Gig Harbor.

Next week they will expand their reach when the new Main and Vine store opens at Harbor Plaza just off Olympic and Point Fosdick drives.

“It’s still a bit nerve-wracking, going from a farmers market to wholesale,” Jess Hogan said. “And getting corporate folks to understand what farm life is like.”

The Hogans are one of the local businesses Kroger tapped to be part of its redesigned grocery store with a focus on local, fresh products.

Jess Hogan received an email just before Christmas from Kroger with the offer to sell wholesale to the company. Someone who knew her business from area farmers markets recommended her to the company, she said.

A month and a few sleepless nights later, Hogan was inside the store setting up her display.

Her goat milk soaps, lotions, bath salts and gift baskets are front and center near the lotion and beauty product aisles of the redesigned store.

“This is our first wholesale attempt for our product,” Hogan said. “These guys were very open. They said ‘You know your product, you know your customer.’ They want it to work.”

Other Gig Harbor businesses with products in the store include Cutters Point Coffee, Heritage Distilling Co. and 7 Seas Brewery. Cutters Point will operate the in-store cafe.

A local touch in the store is a floor-to-ceiling mural painted at the store’s entrance.

The mural, designed and painted by local artists Lita Dawn Ancich and Bob Henry, depicts fishing boats from locally owned fleets. The mural wraps into the mezzanine area depicting a colorful recreational scene of kayakers and small sailboats at the mouth of the harbor.

Ancich and Henry responded to a call for artists and were tapped to do the work. They recently finished a mural on the exterior of Finholm’s Market and Grocery on Harborview Drive.

This story was originally published January 27, 2016 at 6:40 PM with the headline "Gig Harbor farm featured in new Main and Vine store."