Biggers Market Blends Tradition and Ambition

Biggers Market’s roots run deep, tracing back to the 1940s when founder and partner Sven Wallin’s grandfather, alongside his brothers, opened Biggers Brothers, a family-run produce business in Charlotte.

Decades later, the family’s reputation for farm-fresh fruits and vegetables lives on. In 2010, Wallin opened Biggers Market, building on a reputation that endured for the past 16 years.

“I learned a lot about my grandfather, who passed away when my mother was young, through my uncle. The one thing that is ingrained in me is my grandfather’s willingness to go the extra mile for a better product, not settling for what’s easy, but finding what is better,” said Wallin. “He taught me the importance of name and reputation. If your name was on it, it had better be right. Word-of-mouth was always very important to gain a good reputation.”

So was hard work.

That hard work was recognized recently, with Biggers Market earning a Coastal Entrepreneur Award in the category of Retail and Hospitality. The Greater Wilmington Business Journal and the UNCW Center for Innovation and Entrepreneurship present the awards to local businesses across several categories to spotlight entrepreneurial efforts in the region.

Entrepreneurialism has always been central to Biggers Market’s identity, Wallin said. In high school, Wallin worked at a produce stand in Charlotte, an experience that shaped how he thought about food.

“I realized all produce was not created equal, and we could focus on freshness, seasonality and flavor. Grocery stores were convenient, but the produce often didn’t have the same taste or quality,” he said.

As a college graduate without a paying job, Wallin took a leap and opened a 20-by-30-foot roadside stand with just three employees.

“It was so small we had to put tables with umbrellas out in the yard to accommodate everything. We didn’t have pallet jacks or forklifts to unload the trucks. We would form a line and toss watermelons to get them to where they needed to go,” he recalled.

In year two, Wallin opened a market on Carolina Beach Road, still in operation today but larger, and later on Market Street, setting up tents for extra space. In 2019, the sale of the land forced a hunt for a new property, and Wallin landed on his current location at 6250 Market St.

“We had ambitions beyond produce,” he said. “We wanted this market to be a place that felt different from a typical grocery store.”

In 2024, Wallin added his kitchen to the Biggers brand.

“I’ve blurred the lines of a market and a grocery store,” Wallin said. “It’s a place where you can shop, eat, have a drink and listen to live music with friends and family. It’s a mix of retail and social experiences cultivated over time.”

What hasn’t changed, however, is Wallin’s Southern hospitality, a strong sense of pride, purpose and responsibility and a commitment to seasonality. Spring brings the garden center to life with herbs, veggie plants and jumbo ferns. Summer leans heavily into produce. Fall brings the pumpkin patch, and winter hosts a Christmas market.

“It means a lot to have what we’ve built recognized, especially in Wilmington. There’s a lot that goes into the business from our team. And that’s something we’re genuinely grateful for,” Wallin said.

With plans underway for a new larger Carolina Beach Road location, Wallin continues to look ahead.

“It’s an opportunity to build another market from the ground up and continue growing what we’ve been doing,” he said. “We’ve been through development before, so we understand what it takes.”

Wallin said the new Carolina Beach Road location will be the largest and most complete version of the market yet, with roughly twice the footprint of Market Street. Plans include a fully covered open-air market, an air-conditioned indoor space, a scratch kitchen and expanded local grocery selection, a significantly larger garden center and a larger backyard bar. The site will operate year-round, hosting the pumpkin patch and Christmas market that customers have come to count on, along with live music and a gathering space set back from the road.

“It is the full Biggers experience,” Wallin said. “Built from the ground up for a permanent Carolina Beach Road home.”

Wallin said the timeline to opening is still a couple of years out, in large part because the development carries infrastructure requirements unrelated to the building itself. As a condition of project, Biggers must upgrade the public infrastructure surrounding the site, including a full traffic signal north of the property and a U-turn lane extension to the south.