Foods Scraps at the Farmers Market: Season Over and Goal Update

The ability to bring your food scraps to a neighborhood farmers’ markets has ended for 2025.

For the winter months, you can use one of the Dane County Scrap Stops to drop off your food scraps. Visit the Dane County website to register for a kiosk location and learn more about this Dane County project.

The City of Madison farmers’ market food scraps drop-off sites are expected to return in the spring of 2026. More details about hours and locations for the 2026 market locations will be available at a later date.

Food Scraps Goal Update

For 2025, we set a goal of collecting 40,000 pounds of food scraps at the three farmers’ market locations.

The weight goal is roughly the same as 20 large adult bison, which is a small herd.

Our last day of collecting food scraps was Saturday, November 1 at the Westside Community Market. At the start of that day, we were still 763 pounds short. Saturday was cold and sprinkling rain – far from ideal market weather, so we braced for the worst.

Nerves were tense; spirits dampened. 

But, Madison, you showed up.

We collected 1,190 pounds on Saturday.

We reached our goal and then some.

Our final tally for the year was 40,427.1 pounds!

Thank you to everyone who visited the market sites to make this year a resounding success.

Additional Information

For more information about all things food scraps, from prevention to composting, please visit the Food Scraps website.