Santa Cruz Farmers Markets

Pleasure Point Bakery (PPB) was created in 2019 by Elle Sommers. Elle is from Montreal Canada and pursued baking with curiosity as a child. She loved eating and got around eating too much sugary stuff by making and baking it. Elle would ask her mom, "what can I make right now that we have everything for in the pantry?" When the recipe was done and hot on the counter she was less interesting.

In her adulthood, after living in Asia for years and eating a rice-based diet, she returned to North America and devoured bread only to develop a gluten allergy. This was the inspiration for her gluten-free recipes. PPB is focused on health and wholesomeness. To make an artisan bread that is gluten free is a real challenge. Elle focused for an entire year on developing basic her recipes. A foundational value is to make goods that are healthy and low starch with nuts and seeds and organic ingredients that help the body feel good. Everything is also vegan. She’s not vegan but her husband is and so PPB provides this service.

Pleasure Point Bakery came together because of the farmers' markets in Santa Cruz. She was inspired by the energy/community at the markets but couldn’t buy any of the bread as a shopper. She wanted to be part of it and saw the development of the bakery as an opportunity to get involved and provide a service.

Pleasure Point began at the Westside in rotation in 2020 and expanded to Live Oak that year. Elle had worked in bars and restaurants her whole life and likes to be part of a crew that provides a service. Entering as a provider felt special on another level. Talking with other vendors who understood what it takes to make selling at market come together was refreshing and helpful. The first year there is not one week that she didn't learn something that helped her improve upon her systems – what to bring, how much to bake, the aesthetic. It was a steep learning curve.

Elle built out a dedicated kitchen for PPB in her garage - including prep space and ovens. Currently she is the only cottage business in the SCCFM membership. She hopes that she will have more flexibility for creativity when her other works shifts or shrinks; currently she has a full-time job managing human rights for a large company. Elle makes sure that everything they make is moving through ethical systems and has worked for Fair Trade for years.

Core ingredients in PPB goods include certified gluten free flours (almost all organic), nuts and seed oils. All come from North America - all from US except for coco powder and chocolate - but nothing at this point is specifically local. The almonds and walnuts are California grown. Because she does all the processing and chopping by hand the ingredients have to come in a certain format to make the work doable - a situation she considers to think about and troubleshoot.

Find PPB at the Westside and Live Oak markets the first Sunday of the month.

Santa Cruz Permaculture (SCP) arrives at the markets in the early winter and sells their beautifully packaged, artful hoshigaki - dried whole hachiya persimmons. Alongside hachiya they are rolling out a whole line of preserves - pickles and salsas. Seasonally they bring kiwi, greens and other produce to the markets.

Their most unique seasonal treat, hoshigaki is referred to as the kobe beef of the fruit world because it is incredibly laborious, tender and delicious. Each fruit is massaged multiple times as it hangs to dry over a period of weeks. It is most common in Japan, Korea and China. Dave Shaw, the owner and founder of SCP, was first inspired to make hoshigaki over 15 years ago when he noticed abandoned persimmon trees around the county, their fruit dropping and rotting on the ground. As a long-time student of food systems Dave was moved. He knew that world hunger is a distribution, not a production problem; just one third of food produced is eaten. What could be done about this food waste?

Santa Cruz Permaculture is a spirited endeavor, not solely economic. Dave comes from a lineage of educators and health practitioners, his parents a retired teacher and doctor. As Dave moved through his 20s and into his 30s he examined how he could contribute to the important work he was studying: permaculture, agriculture, forest and water regeneration, etc. During this time he also completed the UCSC Farm and Garden Apprenticeship. Preserving local food and moving it out of the waste stream became one part of a large vision. He sought out elders and learned from them eventually launching Santa Cruz Permaculture in 2016. The organization would include educational programs, consultation with farms and homesteaders and eventually production and an immersion program. Hoshigaki is the production part of the company.

Serendipitously there are persimmon trees on land where Dave lives. There he harvests, dries and packages the fruit. It is a sophisticated processed - the first year the about 200 fruit he strung to dry molded. Now, over a decade later, Dave has honed his skills and the hoshigaki he sells at market are beautiful.

In addition to running SCP Dave is a teacher at UCSC and out in the community and he is a PhD student. When we were closing our conversation he brought up the trimtab principle. On ships the trimtab is a small rudder that turns first, then turning the larger rudder. He sees SCP as a trimtab for the Great Turning; a move from the industrial society toward a life sustaining society. Learn more about Dave and his work by visiting his stand at the markets this winter or visit his website. Glad to have you on board this season SCP!

In 2024 Switch Bakery joined our circuit, rotating through various markets and introducing their exceptional gluten free products. Owners Amanda and Joshua had both been baking for over a decade and made a giant leap, SWITCHING up a whole host of things a couple of years back, to follow their dreams. Switches included leaving their day jobs to focus on the bakery, focusing on a regional market, committing to simple, organic and nutritious ingredients, making staple foods that were common sustenance in households decades ago.

Joshua and Amanda's angle on baked good came from necessity and, over time, became inspired by creativity, feeling good and meeting a need in communities. Joshua has crones disease - as a result the team transformed their kitchen ingredients into items helpful for nutrition, ease of digestion and gut health including farm eggs, rice flours, avocado, coconut and olive oil and butter.

Though they love and excel at pastries, Switch grew their savory line of items, working to make food that is fuel and that people feel good eating. Perhaps less fancy but still satisfying and providing the body with basic sustenance.

Switch is currently a team of two, Joshua and Amanda, and they do all of their baking in a commercial kitchen in Santa Cruz County. They run best with a four-person team and are hiring. Together they build a weekly menu playing off of seasonality and personal and world affairs. One of their most beloved items is a carrot bread, their flat breads highlight items in the market, Joshua often taking the lead from the Live Earth veggie box, and a current joy is a Palestinian-inspired bread.

With Switch Bakery as the central project of their household, no day jobs to float the, the team does have visions for growth. Joshua also has a background in helping businesses get off the ground and grow; he appreciates right-sized businesses. They are proceeding with caution and imagine certain products scaling up to meet regional needs while others stay small scale and accessible through direct sales. They hope to eventually have enough revenue that will grant them time fore creativity and connection in addition to the baking and selling grind. For now scaling up to the current demand is a goal in itself. They sell out at every market and have doubled their production in the last year.

Swich sells at the Downtown Market weekly and is in rotation every other Saturday at the Westside beginning February 1st. Check them out at market and ask about their order-in-advance and pick up at market options. They also do weekly bread subscriptions and provide a discount if you pick up at an SC Market. Amanda and Joshua didn't expect to love selling at farmers' markets but it has turned out to be a bright spot and a place for growth. We're all benefiting!