Jo Daviess County's farmers market doesn't stop in November. Jo Daviess Local Foods takes orders from noon Friday to noon Monday, and on Tuesday afternoon it delivers to parking lots and porches from Apple River to Warren. It says plainly on its site that it delivers "every Tuesday, year-round," with no minimum order and no requirement to order every week.
That schedule is why the market still runs in winter. The farms, bakers and makers behind it get a list of what was ordered and make that much, so a cold, quiet week doesn't leave anyone with a table of unsold food.
Built for towns whose markets were thinning out
Erin Keyser founded Jo Daviess Local Foods in 2018. She told Shaw Local's Sauk Valley Living that she had seen some of the smaller farmers markets in surrounding towns "dwindling or dying out a little bit," and thought that if producers worked together, they could better serve the county.
It started with eight producers and seven pickup locations. By July 2026, the same Shaw Local profile counted roughly 40 producers and 13 pickup sites across Jo Daviess, Stephenson and Carroll counties. In other words, the market grew by covering more towns on one route each week.
How one week moves, from Friday noon to Tuesday evening
The cycle explains why winter doesn't break it. Here is the week as Keyser and the market lay it out:
- Friday at noon, the online shop at jdlf.org opens. Shoppers browse the vendors and pick a pickup spot or home delivery.
- Through the weekend, orders can be edited. Keyser told Shaw Local that shoppers "have all weekend to shop, they can go on and then add more things later."
- Monday at noon, ordering closes and producers receive reports showing exactly what was bought.
- Monday afternoon and Tuesday morning, bakery vendors bake, and farmers harvest close to delivery, sometimes on Tuesday morning itself.
- Tuesday, orders are sorted in the back half of the market's Elizabeth building, finished in June 2025, and then head out on the pickup route.
The Monday report is what lets producers plan. Amera Striegel owns Faith Over Fear Fermentary in Freeport and serves as the market's communications director. She described it to Shaw Local: "It's great not having the waste, and knowing what exactly to bake, instead of baking and then going to a market and hoping it sells." A slow week in January costs a baker little when every loaf going out is already paid for.
The Tuesday route, stop by stop
The pickup list on the market's ordering site reads like a route sheet. It starts at the Elizabeth food hub in mid-afternoon and fans out toward the edges of the delivery area into the evening. Here are the times as posted, in order:
| Time | Town | Where |
|---|---|---|
| 3:45 p.m. | Elizabeth | JDLF Food Hub |
| 4:00 to 4:15 p.m. | Apple River | Thriving Thistle parking lot |
| 4:00 to 4:15 p.m. | Galena Territory | Shenandoah Riding Center parking lot |
| 4:15 p.m. | Hanover | Parking lot behind Great River Market |
| 4:15 p.m. | Stockton | Spahn & Rose parking lot |
| 4:15 to 4:30 p.m. | Mt. Carroll | Davis Community Center parking lot |
| 4:30 to 4:45 p.m. | Savanna | Farmers' market pavilion near Shiver's Ice Cream |
| 4:40 to 5:00 p.m. | Galena | Irish Cottage parking lot |
| 4:45 p.m. or later | Lena | A host's home, details given with the order |
| 5:00 p.m. | Apple Canyon Lake | Firehouse Fitness Center parking lot |
| 5:00 to 6:00 p.m. | Freeport | A host's home, details given with the order |
| 5:15 p.m. | Galena, Summit Street | Galena Family Dentist parking lot |
| 6:00 to 7:00 p.m. | Warren | A host's front porch, details given with the order |
Most of these windows are 15 minutes long, or a single time. Stockton, Hanover and Mt. Carroll all start at 4:15, so on a Tuesday in Stockton, picking up farm food fits in with a stop at Spahn & Rose. The two stops with the longest windows, Freeport and Warren, are both hosted at someone's home. Exact pickup locations are confirmed when you order.
If a Tuesday stop doesn't work, the market says it can deliver to most homes in Jo Daviess County. Shaw Local's profile adds Freeport to that delivery area.
What a November order looks like
Because everything is ordered ahead, the shelf follows the season closely. Products recently listed in the online store include:
- Fresh cranberries from Hammerand Farm, listed at $3.74 a pound with the note "Fresh cranberries for the holidays!"
- Pink Lady apples from Orchard Landing, Co., at $13.80 for a half-peck bag, along with a take-and-bake apple pie from the same orchard.
Those prices and items change every week, so treat them as a snapshot, not a menu. Faith Over Fear Fermentary, the Freeport maker, sells sourdough bread, sauerkraut and kimchi, and its catalog also includes cranberry-orange scones and dinner rolls. The producer directory carries the steadier names: Deerland Dairy, Charm Type Bakery, Blue Barrel Produce, Wild Angels Creamery and Dan D Bees, along with the orchard, the cranberry farm and the fermentary. Shaw Local described the broader mix as grass-fed beef, pasture-raised poultry, dairy and cheeses, duck eggs, local honey, sourdough and fermented foods, plus elderberry products, soaps and skin-care items from regional artisans.
Thanksgiving falls on Thursday, Nov. 26, so the Tuesday before it is Nov. 24. That week's order window would close at noon on Monday, Nov. 23. Check the market's site for any holiday-week timing before planning a menu around that pickup.
For gifts, the market sells gift certificates that can be emailed to the recipient or printed so you can hand them over yourself.
A storefront for the days between Tuesdays
The order cycle covers Tuesdays. The grocery store at 2757 W. Headquarters Road in Elizabeth covers the rest of the week. It opened in August 2025 in the front of the same building where orders get sorted. The market's current hours are 10:30 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. Wednesday through Friday and 10:30 a.m. to 4 p.m. Saturday.
The store page lists beef, chicken, pork, eggs, milk, yogurt, cheese, fresh produce, bread, jam and jelly, flour, hot sauce, charcuterie, ice cream and kombucha. Keyser told Shaw Local that the shop is for people who "prefer to come pick out their food in person, see the veggies and pick their favorite," and that growth has been "slow-but-steady."
The building also hosts hands-on classes. This fall's calendar included a drinking-vinegar and shrubs workshop on Oct. 24 and Pumpkin Pasta 101 on Oct. 31, both at the Headquarters Road address.
Where the route goes from here
In 2025 the organization became a nonprofit, the JDLF Collective, and added a farm-to-food-pantry program. The program buys extra food from local producers and passes it to area food pantries, which gives farmers another place to sell. The Foundation for Northwest Illinois announced a $45,000 grant for that initiative in July 2025.
The bigger investment is in the route itself. On the Illinois Department of Agriculture's list of 2025/2026 Resilient Food Systems Infrastructure awards, Jo Daviess Local Foods received $99,850 for a refrigerated electric delivery van. The award is meant to increase the amount and variety of local dairy, eggs and perishable produce the market can safely carry. Deerland Dairy appears on the same list with a $97,455 award for a pasteurizer and a cream separator.
To order, go to jdlf.org/online-market between noon Friday and noon Monday, or call the market at 815-775-2674.
At Sullivan Realty, a lot of us farm or come from farm families, and we like seeing growers from Elizabeth to Warren reach more neighbors every week. If you have questions about land, a farm property or life in a small Jo Daviess County town, give us a call. We're glad to talk it through. Contact Us.
