Review

The Rainbow Umbrella corporation, best known for the creation of King of Pops, opened a  “King of Crops” farmers’ market in Ponce City market next to the already existing King of Pops Bar. This event is another step forward for the ever growing Atlanta company.

The idea started at the farm run by King of Crops, which is located in Winston, Georgia. To provide a better variety of foods however, they partnered with Cory Mosser, head of a farming consultant company named Natural born Tillers. Natural Born Tillers began in 2014 after Mosser, who had farmed for over a decade, wanted to help start “farms that worked.”

One of my first clients for consulting was King of Pops,” Mosser said. “I helped them start the King of Crops farm and hire a farm manager. We had talked in the past about opening a farm stand, but not in any detail. When we learned about the space at Ponce City Market, it seemed like a natural fit, so we started putting together ideas, and decided to move forward.”

The people on the other side were more then happy to move forwards with Mosser:

“Cory helped us start our farm, King of Crops, in Winston Georgia for the last few years,” said Steven Carse, one of the founders of King of Pops. “He has a ton of experience and knows all the local farmers personally.”

Together, they set out to create something that transcends just the food that is sold.  They try to sell food that is local, and from known farmers, so that everyone can see that the food has a story, and that it is the result of the work of people near us.

“What I am most proud of about this project is the fact that we are sourcing directly from people we know.”, said Mosser, “I won’t buy food anonymously because that creates a separation that makes it easy to ignore the work that went into producing the food. I would be selling boxes of produce with no story, and that doesn’t interest me in the slightest.”

After finding success selling at Farmer’s Market earlier this year, Carse cis confident in creating an independent shop. The stand provides a wide variety of products for customers, ranging from fruits and vegetables to meats and juices.

“[We offer] Pine Street Market meat, Decimal Place goat cheese, Atlanta Fresh yogurt, Beautiful Briny Sea salt, Doux South pickles, Banner Butter, Pure Bliss granola, produce from Timpson Creek Farm, Woodland Gardens. The list goes on,” Carse said.  

Next to the farm stand is an established King of Pops bar. Here, they are expanding from their repertoire of food. They sell drinks that come with popsicles in them instead of ice cubes, popsicles that can be dipped into chocolate, salad and grilled cheese.The two stores synergize together; the goal is for customers to visit both.  Some of the ingredients in the popsicles can be bought at the Farmer’s Market as well.

“We supply them with any local produce that they need,” Carse said. You can buy watermelon that’s coming from the same field that watermelons for our watermelon pops came from.”

“We want to provide the freshest seasonal produce averrable outside of a weekly farmers market,” Mosser said. “We also want to tell the story of our farmers since we know them and have worked on many of the farms that we represent. We hope to illustrate to our customers just how easy it is to prepare and enjoy  meals using fresh local ingredients.