LIGONIER, Pennsylvania — For the last 47 years, the farmers’ market located along the old Lincoln Highway has drawn a good-sized crowd to the open field where it sits here on the edge of this Westmoreland County town.
IMG_4796.jpgThis year, thanks to a combination of the psychological after-effects of the pandemic, a renewed interest in localism, and the staggering impact of inflation, those crowd numbers have gone from good to very, very good, said Jason Frye, the proprietor of the Pleasant Lane Farms creamery. His stand is filled with a wide variety of cheeses made nearby.

“We made a decision as a family business to hold the line on the prices,” he said. “Yes, it would’ve been real easy for us to go out this year at the market and add a dollar onto every one of our products. But we’re now finding that consumers are saying, ‘Hey, your products sometimes might actually be cheaper than the thing that I was buying at the store, and it’s local,’ and that seems to mean a lot to shoppers.”