ESTERO, Fla. — During the pandemic, local farmers market vendors across Southwest Florida have been pushing through challenges and staying hard at work.
Before Covid-19, Lisa Van would travel across Europe to her family’s farm and gather rare ingredients for her product line, Holistic Skincare.
"Because of covid, we're not allowed to get back into the country so I can go to Europe, but I can't get back."
Van says she stayed in Florida, where she sells her serums and soaps, every year.
Overcoming the strict travel bans in place for the coronavirus, the ingredients she uses from rare flowers had to be shipped over from places, like France and Romania.
Van says she used her local lab to keep creating and bumped up business to six markets a week.
Thursday, her skincare and watermelon tea booth was set up at the Coconut Point farmers market in Estero.
"We’ve had to do more internet advertising. I ordered five more signs. I'm at the farmer's market earlier in the morning and I’m doing more sampling. You have to work twice as hard but it ended up helping my business."
In a time of sickness and social distancing, Van says holistic healing has gained more attention.
"They don't want drugs. They wanted their senses back. They don't know what to do. People have taken the time now to research more on what's going to heal the body and how we can make our lifestyle better."
To find more details about Van's skincare products, click here.
To learn more about the weekly farmers markets in Southwest Florida, click here.
