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Ali Moxley

Fat Toads Farm Pantry

Features, Issue 29 Summer 2026

Carly Brief welcomes vendors into Fat Toads Farm Pantry, a new farm stop grocery store in Bozeman’s northeast neighborhood. Here, she sells an array of Montana products, including eggs from Chaos Farms, located in Whitehall, and flowers grown by a variety of vendors including Bozeman’s Kokoro Farm.

Montana’s First Grocery Farm Stop is an Avenue for Supporting Montana Producers

Walking into Fat Toads Farm Pantry feels like stepping into a 1970s neighborhood corner store. The shelves are packed with artisan cheeses, freshly baked bread, seasonal vegetables, and an assortment of Montana- raised meats. Sunlight streams through the east-side windows, highlighting colorful flower bouquets. Sitting behind the register is Carly Brief, local resident and store owner. She can often be found talking with customers about the farmers she sources products from, chatting with vendors, or taking a few quiet minutes to work on her latest knitting project.

While Fat Toads Farm Pantry is new to Bozeman, Brief has worked in the food system for over a decade. In 2020, she moved to the area and took a job at Gallatin Valley Botanical, a diversified farm in the Gallatin Valley that raises animals and grows a wide array of vegetables. She began working in the fields on their vegetable crew and quickly transitioned into a managerial role.

That winter, she ran the Bozeman Winter Farmers’ Market, a position she held for three years that allowed her to build strong connections with local producers. During her time as market manager, she recognized both the demand for local food and issues with the current market structure, including increasing rental prices.

Brief went on to work at a local food wholesaler, where she identified barriers to local food purchasing for restaurants and chefs. After 12 years working throughout the food supply chain, she was ready to address these challenges and launch her own venture.

Brief opened Fat Toads Farm Pantry at 521 E. Peach St., Ste. C, north of downtown, in February 2026, offering the Bozeman community a permanent farmers market option.

She operates the store utilizing a farm stop model. Farm stops are retail outlets that sell food on consignment from local producers. This structure allows producers to set their own prices and easily adjust pricing. Farmers drop off their products at the store, and store staff handles merchandising, inventory, sales, and marketing.

For each item sold, farmers receive a return of 70 cents to the dollar, a marked improvement to the 16-cent return farmers receive on average for their produce, according to the National Farmers Union. Brief says that she aims to create alternative outlets for farmers to sell their goods year-round and she seeks to address the larger barriers farmers are struggling with in the grocery sector.

Selling products in traditional grocery stores, particularly chain stores, is increasingly difficult for small, local producers. Over the last two centuries, the grocery market has become progressively more consolidated, with five corporations now owning over 60 percent of the food retail market share, according to the analytical tool Grocery Gap Atlas. In a 2021 report by Food & Water Watch, Walmart alone was found to capture one out of every three grocery dollars spent in the country. Larger stores that used to pride themselves on supporting local farmers, such as Whole Foods, often change their food acquisition strategies when they are purchased by bigger corporations like Amazon. As dominant companies have bought out small retailers, trends show that food access has decreased in many areas of the country, with rural areas disproportionately affected.

In many cases, grocery stores, particularly large chains, are unwilling to purchase products from farmers unless they can guarantee consistently high volumes year-round. As a result, grocery stores may transition to purchasing produce from abroad. Often, it is difficult for domestic producers to compete on price point with foreign growers who may have different labor and food safety standards, lowering their overall cost of production.

Farmers are now relying more heavily on independent grocery stores and direct-to-consumer sales. However, even some independent grocery stores are struggling to purchase local goods due to limitations from broadline distributors. Broadliners, such as Sysco and C&S Wholesale Grocers, are largescale food service suppliers that carry a full array of products, from frozen goods to fresh produce.

According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture Economic Research Service, purchases made through broadliners account for approximately half of U.S. food service distribution sales, though the exact percentage is unknown. These distributors will often offer independent grocery stores less favorable pricing than...