Maine Owned, Maine Grown.
Our mission is to serve the people of Maine through increased access to Maine-grown foods, with a focus and foundation in ethically sourced and distributed produce. We work closely with over 80 Maine farms and food producers and a wide network of food system partners to bring you the best Maine-grown foods. We may have varying seasons in Maine, but our role is to connect you to an abundance of Maine-grown and produced foods year-round.
We work to ensure that the miles food travels to get to you are as minimal as possible - ensuring the freshest product, less food waste, and the least environmental impact.
Our Story
Peak Season has had a couple of iterations. The original venture, Peaks Season, started during summers away from Bates College in Lewiston, Maine, where Peak Season’s owner, Colleen Hanlon-Smith, was a student. While living on a homestead in Bowdoinham, she realized people in Maine’s island communities wanted local food but had limited access to it. So Colleen sourced and brought out food from over 50 farmers and producers she met in Bowdoinham to the Casco Bay Islands. That’s when she caught the bug for this work.
Since those early years, Colleen has founded, managed, or served on the board of 8 Maine food non-profits and businesses. This includes serving as the Executive Director of the Maine Federation of Farmers’ Markets and building two businesses, Peak Season and Daybreak Growers Alliance, all to help Maine’s local food system thrive, making it viable for Maine’s small, independent farmers and ensuring Mainers have access to food being harvested and produced up the road and across the state.
Today’s version of Peak Season started in 2023 to meet the growing need for farmers to have diverse, viable markets and for chefs, bakers, grocery co-ops, specialty stores, K-12 school kitchens, and others to access the abundance of healthy, ethically grown food from their own state.
