When Kelly and Jessica Carter began running the Orem Farmers Market in 2020, they hosted just 20 vendors.

Five years later, the market has grown tenfold.

Opening day for the 2025 Orem Farmers Market runs from 5-9 p.m. Wednesday at Orem City Center Park and will have around 200 local businesses selling products.

Kelly Carter believes the rapid growth was spurred by COVID-19. That momentum only continued since.

“Supply chain issues during COVID made people realize that if they don’t support local they’re not going to get everything they want when there’s a problem,” he said. “Plus, people were looking for an open-air environment that had something to do.”

By this year, though, the market has reached its capacity.

Because the Carters aren’t focused on adding to the 200-vendor threshold they already have, they will focus instead on providing the best possible options on a week-to-week basis.

“We’re limiting the vendors to a certain number and trying to get a really good mix and variety of vendors and food,” Carter said. “We rotate a lot of the different vendors every week. So we’re trying to keep it about the same size, but grow it in quality.”

Which businesses are in attendance each week may vary, but what won’t change is the origin of each item. Everything grown, baked, hand-crafted or otherwise produced for the market is required to come from Utah and will be sold by a local business.

Carter is a local farmer himself, growing plants and produce from his land in Provo, and views locality as the central responsibility of the market.

“It really is just about bringing local food and local businesses together and having them supported by the local constituency,” he said. “Because if there weren’t customers, there wouldn’t be a market, and if there weren’t local vendors, there wouldn’t be a market.”

The event also serves as a low-pressure way for people to grow new businesses.

“You’re paying $30 to test out a product and see how people like it,” Carter said. “So we have quite a few businesses that are just barely new, starting out, and they’re trying to test out to see if people actually want their product or not.”

The Orem Farmers Market is the largest of four markets the Carters own through their company, Sunset Farmers Markets, and is the earliest in the season to open. Their other markets are in Springville, Lindon and Draper.

Springville’s market opens June 16 and runs every Monday evening until October. It will have just over 100 local businesses participating each week. Lindon’s market goes July 17 through Oct. 9 every Thursday evening, hosting around 60 vendors a week.