From being farmers and fire survivors to bolstering Chico’s creatives, couple remains committed with upcoming Your Market Place pop-ups

More of the pair’s pop-up events will happen around Chico on Nov. 30, Dec. 15 and Dec. 20 & 21 

By Emily Haerter

Being a hustling college town that’s rich with agriculture, Chico has never been short on inventive people chasing their dreams. Butte County is full of artists, creators, developers and chefs that all strive to make their beloved hobby into a full-time career. Sammey Zangrilli and Cheetah Tchudi wanted to give them a place to do just that.

While many in Chico may know the couple as the force behind Your Market Place, their story begins in local, back-to-the-earth farming.

The two met back in 2009, while Tchudi was rebuilding his family’s farm and Zangrilli was aiming to lower her impact on the earth via living with the GRUB cooperative. They say it was love at first sight, and after that fateful day of meeting through farmer friends, they were married and onto the grand adventure of small business co-ownership. 

When Tchudi noticed the widespread growth of the Turkeytail mushrooms that adorned the composting oak logs on his property, he decided to coin the name “Turkeytail” for the farm. This spot in Yankee Hill was a perfect fit for the couple, complete with a well, a power pull and a paved road all the way to the front gate. Meat farming was their first route, focusing on pasture-raised sheep to provide meat to the Chico community, as well as keep up with brush management around the farm.

Turkeytail’s motto, as Zangrilli told CN&R, is “nothing goes to waste and everything is recycled back into the land”. 

As the farm expanded, its pigs were fed with scraps from pre-consumer and post-consumer compost at restaurants. The approach was wholistic: From taking beans, rice and chips at a vegan dining spot, to the apple mash from Chico’s cidery, Turkeytail Farms was on a mission to avoid waste.

Growing mushrooms on organic rice troughs led to cooking the mycelium to feed to the chickens. Sheep would be given alfalfa sprouts. As they travelled around the farm, they would “fertilize” the surrounding land.

Fresh flowers that didn’t make the cut would be dried by Zangrilli for wreaths and flowerfetti. 

“Nothing was ever just used once out here,” Zangrilli mentioned, “so that we could also have a lower impact on the land.”

After the tragic Campfire in 2018, Zangrilli and Tchudi lost their home, as well as crucial farm supplies. Because of this, Turkeytail Farm’s co-owners decided they would use Tchudi’s degree in mycology to pivot from meat farming to mushroom cultivation and herbal products. 

“The goal has always been a diversified farm, with the ability to pivot and work with what you got,” Tchudi told CN&R. “Mushrooms have been a true point of the farm. Meat is just one part of the greater picture. We understand that the economy will shift, and we will shift with it.”

Zangrilli and Tchudi have been working with the Natural Resources Conservation Service and the U.S. Department of Agriculture for many years, landing grants to improve their land related to brush piles, native seedlings and a solar well for watering their native plant projects.

After the Camp Fire, Tchudi took it upon himself to research and experiment with mycoremediation as a way to heal the massive burn scars left on the land.

Despite his inquiries, there was still need for water, proper infrastructure and funding, so the research is ongoing. Locals can find this research here.

As small business owners for over 15 years, Zangrilli and Tchudi now also run Your Local Marketplace, also known as YLM, an inclusive community-oriented business made for pop-up shops to highlight Chico’s many creators of handmade goods and locally sourced products. 

Brianne Epley is one of the vendors at Your Local Marketplace, specializing in stained-glass and artisan pressed flowers. As a new and upcoming business-owner, Epley was excited to be accepted into the YLM realm of vendors in 2022. It allowed her to introduce Bree Glass Studio to the public.

“It can be tricky to find pop-up markets that bring the right clientele for your products,” Epley acknowledged in an email. “There’s a level of trial-and-error to it. Thankfully, YLM has been a great fit for me. Because of their markets, I have been able to introduce my business to tons of people who wouldn’t have found me otherwise.”

Zangrilli tries to provide all of her vendors with proper chances for success, going as far as to position Epley’s booth in a place where the sunlight will show off the articulate artistry within the glass.

Future pop-ups are on the horizon for YLM, including a Winter Market at Chico Chai house on November 30, the Backyard Solutions pop-up on Mangrove on December 15, and the Celebrations Market at Lassen Traditional Cidery in Chico will run on December 20 to the 21. More information on these events can be found on their website.

“You, as a small business owner, need to figure out what makes your product unique, Zangrilli reflected, “and what makes your product unique is you and your story.”

And Zangrilli would know. She and Tchudi continue to have quite a story to tell.