© Jerimiah B. Brown

Market Purist

Luis Vasquez takes on "buy and bake"

by Vickie Elmer

posted 8/7/2009

UAW trainer Luis Vazquez is planning a protest. Not at GM--what's the point?--but at the Ann Arbor Farmer's Market. The former market commission chair says he plans to target Kapnick's Orchards, which in addition to growing fruit sells tasty, modestly priced pies, breads, rolls, doughnuts, and cookies.

Vazquez thinks that Kapnick's buys ready-to-cook baked goods, and he wants the market to require that all bakery products be "mixed, formed, and baked" in local kitchens--keeping out items like frozen "buy and bake" pies. Jeff Straw, city parks deputy manager, says that at his most recent visit "there was no indication of the buying and selling of frozen pies," and the city declined to investigate Vazquez's complaint. Scott Robertello, Kapnick's owner, did not return phone calls seeking comment.

Vazquez says he'll protest with a petition, a picket, or both at the market's August 8 birthday celebration. Says the activist: "I'm willing to be the turd in the punch bowl."   

[Originally published in August, 2009.]