My post on the “local” and “organic” issue has thrown up some interesting comments. I’d love to open this up wider. What constitutes a real Farm Shop in your opinion? And, while we are on the subject, what is a real Farmers Market?
I was in Bristol at the weekend and went to Waitrose at Portishead on the way home where there a very small rather poor Farmers Market right outside in progress. I thought to myself if it couldn’t do well in an affluent area like that on a brilliant sunny day then there was something seriously wrong. Plenty of Waitrose shoppers were wandering past the stalls but hardly anyone was buying and it wasn’t hard to see why. The stalls were not inspiring and one in particular stood out. It seemed to be selling prepacked lumps of very ordinary cheese from all over the country. The only thing local as far as I could tell was that the packing plant was in Somerset. Not my idea of what a stall should be.
The whole thing is a real can of worms so let’s open it up and see what everyone thinks.
Our local farmers organise a market in a church hall down in the village. We know them by name and we know their farms. In the next town the farmers market is bigger and farmers come from a bit further afield. We don’t buy from anyone who doesn’t say who they are and where they are from and a bit about what they do and why. Interestingly there’s a first rate cheese maker that travels from Lancashire to sell in Derbyshire because they can’t find a market for their cheese up there.
My sister used to live in central Edinburgh, and from what she says the farmers market there was equally good.
How good a market is depends on the organisers and the criteria set for being a stall holder.
By: Dot on June 15, 2009
at 6:12 pm
To me, a farmer’s market is where the producers themselves come with their produce that they’ve dug out of the ground, picked off the tree, or taken off the hoof. Even here in France, the village markets are full of people who buy produce from the wholesaler and resell it. And none of the fruit and veg is any different than what I can get from the local supermarket.
By: cathairinmyknitting on June 16, 2009
at 7:15 am
umm I find this a very difficult issue. I buy meat locally produced by a local butcher just up the road. However I am quite intolerant of chemical additives so sometime I have to eat organic if I want to eat it at all-tomatoes are a case in point and also egg. However the fact that I dye my Australian merino with locally produced dye plants has almost no impact at all on my customers as far as I can tell Some of my putative customers want me to use organic British merino-would they pay the price though? Further more it is not fine enough for gossamer felt but possibly too fine for bags and slippers and mittens. umm! it is hard some times to decide which way to go. Is it more important to invest in a rain water harvesting system or to spend more on buying British merino. What ever I do I don’t think people will pay much more for my products and that is the bottom line. This is a bit off topic but it is about me being able to say locally produced wool dyed with locally produced dye plant but the range of colours is reduced and the price is considerably higher.
By: Helen Melvin on June 17, 2009
at 7:18 pm
I too am in a bit of a quandry about lots of things these days! Here in Tavistock we have a wonderful farmers’ market, and we are also lucky to be able to use one of the three local butchers – they can tell you exactly where your meat came from, even occasionally down to the field!
We have an award winning cheese shop that stocks west country cheeses only and though when the local baker retired (no-one wanted to take it over and get up at 4 am to start the day’s bread!), we do now have a fantastic opportunity to stock up once a fortnight when Bread of Devon have a stall in the market.
We have an excellent greengrocer, and an organic greengrocer. Her stuff is so expensive, though, and tends to hang around because it is so pricey. On the other hand, our non-organic greengrocer’s produce is very local as they don’t subsribe to the folly of paying over the odds for veggies to travel miles when you can get them near at hand.
When it comes to fibre, though, I’m with Helen, at least until Lesley’s flock increases enough to satisfy us all!!
Lots of our sheep are pastured on the moor and a Scottish Blackface that has spent 12 months in the rain, even in milder Devon, doesn’t usually produce a fleece that I fancy spinning! It’s the old story – till everyone feels like Lesley about fleece (and I know there are other farmers who care about the quality of therr wool) and until the government realise what an asset is being wasted, I shall get the bulk of my wool from either Australasia or the Falklands.
jane
By: Jane on June 18, 2009
at 7:44 pm