Autumn was in full swing at the Fresno State Rue and Gwen Gibson Farm Market (GFM), bringing in seasonal fruits and vegetables for their fall festival on Saturday, Oct. 19, 2019.
Families were welcomed in as they crossed big red sliding doors and a display of pumpkins and haystacks beginning at 10 a.m. and ending at 4 p.m.
The event showcased a winery collection followed by a variety of displayed nuts and raisins, chocolate covered almonds, pistachios and more.
The frozen section consisted of several different ice cream picks, meat, produce and the university’s very own unique raspberry iced tea.
Some unique flavors of ice cream that attendees could choose, including cake batter, cookie dough, toasted almonds, java chocolate caramel cup.
The GFM offers a wide variety of products in-store that are grown, packaged, and/or processed by Fresno State and its students.
The market unifies and showcases the products of the different enterprise units from the Fresno State University Farm Laboratory, such as crop, dairy, enology, floral, food processing, horticulture, meat, orchard and viticulture departments.
Each department had a booth that was crowded with families as they had the opportunity to be educated on the free sample food they tasted and could purchase inside the market.
For any children brought to the event, a scavenger hunt enticed and made kids eager to participate in an exciting activity. By going from booth to booth, the younger attendees were able to find fun in sampling ice cream, granola, fruit, waffles and other sweet treats.
The Fresno State Orchard showcased a booth that consisted of pistachios, bread to go along with their olive oils and pomegranates.
“I think [the event] is going good so far,” said Crystal Sandoval, a plant science major. “It is good to educate little kids about where their food comes from.”
Other booths displayed poster boards and plants, offered food samplers and held a drawing contest for the young attendees to participate in.
The Fresno State Creamery presented three flavorful ice creams; vanilla, java chocolate caramel cup and pumpkin, with vanilla being the most popular choice.
Fans of the GFM will be preparing a peppermint candy ice cream that customers can look forward to for the winter season.
Be sure to follow the GFM’s variety of community events that will be showcasing their products throughout the rest of the year on Instagram with the handle @fresnostategfm.