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As a child growing up in Trumbull, his family raised mail-order chickens. Today he offers eggs at the Greenwich Farmers Market — fresh from Newtown’s On The Rocks Farm.
Pieragostini began selling his eggs at the Greenwich Farmers Market in 2007 with encouragement from the Connecticut Department of Agriculture. He began that year with 200 chickens, and his numbers soon swelled. “By the end of the that year, we had a thousand birds,” he said.
Sales at the market tend to be brisk. “It’s good,” he said of business at the market. “I usually sell every egg I bring here.”
Unlike the ones from the supermarket, Pieragostini’s eggs are truly farm-to-table. The eggs he brings to the market each Saturday were usually hatched by his chickens on Thursday or Friday, he said.
Pieragostini has a loyal following — some of his customers will even cover for him if he has to step away for a moment. And some visit the market simply to get his eggs. “They’ll come here to buy eggs — nothing else,” Pieragostini said.
But, of course, the farmers market dishes up a wide range of products — ranging from vegetables to maple syrup. Dawn Longton of Lebanon’s Sugar Maple Farms offered samples of honey and maple syrup Saturday.
Longton said her products — particularly the honey — are popular with health-minded consumers, who enjoy their immunity-boosting properties. “A lot of people take a teaspoon or two a day,” she said of the honey.
Sugar Maple’s products also enhance the flavor of foods. Longton personally enjoys the farm’s honey mustard. “I take it and I actually put it on top of chicken breast,” she said. “It’s fantastic.”
The Greenwich Farmers Market, which is located off of I-95 at the corner of Horseneck Lane and Arch Street, is open from 9:30 a.m. to 1 p.m. Saturdays from May 14 through Thanksgiving. No dogs are allowed per state law.
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