State Fair Style Canning Contest at the Mill City Farmers Market

In the spirit of the MN State Fair, Mill City Farmers Market will host its own Canning Conteston Saturday, August 27.

Enter your home processed goods to a panel of judges in one (or all three!) of the categories listed below.  Your works of art will be evaluated based on the official MN State Fair criteria.

Rule #1: All produce ingredients must be LOCALLY GROWN!

Category: Sweet
Including jams, jellies, syrups, whole fruit preserves, butters...

Category: Tangy
Includes pickles, relishes, chutneys, salsa…

Category: Market Fresh
Show off your market dedication – how many Mill City Farmers Market vendors can you represent in one jar of home canned goods?!

Scorecard for all categories:

- Overall appearance
- Size and shape
- Color
- Texture
- Most creative recipe
- Best use of ingredients from the Market!

How to submit your goods:
Bring your Sweet, Tangy and/or Market Fresh goodies to the Market on August 27.  Volunteers will be collecting submissions in the Market Cafe from 8:00am – 9:00am.  A panel of judges will evaluate each submission and choose a winner from each category.  The winners will be announced after the Mill City Cooks cooking demo (around 11:00am), after which time contestants can pick up their submissions.

Please include the following with your submission:

- Name
- Phone number
- Submission name (i.e. Strawberry Rhubarb Jam)
- List of ingredients
- List of sources (i.e. name of farm/market vendor where strawberries and rhubarb were purchased)

Our Judges
Barbara Schaller is a canning connoisseur, steadily winning blue ribbons at the Minnesota State Fair since 1981. Visit her blog “I Can Can, Can You?” to take home some jammin’ cannin’ tips.

Liz McMann is a Master Food Preserver and natural foods educator at the Mississippi Market. She is an avid urban gardener, documenting her gardening, cooking and preserving project on her blog “Food Snobbery is my Hobbery“.