My sister Stephanie is visiting and we went to a Farmer's Market together last Sunday. We bought some bread, some cheese, some pate, a sticky toffee pudding, some bacon, black pudding and sausages, some mutton pies, a chicken and some chocolate with crystallised orange. I always quiz the vendors about what the ingredients are and where they are sourced. I am looking for local produce hand-made with love and passion, and I walk away if I don't get satisfactory answers.For example we talked to a bloke who made cheeses. He had samples of cheese we could taste, but Stephanie was blown away by the fact that he kept encouraging us to try another, and another. She was more used to the attitude "You can have a taste if you have to, but if you're not going to buy anything, get lost". This cheese guy wasn't desperate for us to buy anything, but he was excited about his cheese and keen to show it off. And rightly so - he made exceptionally beautiful cheese and we bought several different ones from him.
Over the last few days as we have eaten our way through our purchases we have talked about the difference between the food we bought at the farmer's market and food you buy at supermarkets. It really drives home how utterly dire supermarket food is. Even Tesco's so-called "Finest" range. Even "This isn't just food, this is Marks and Spencer's overpriced over-hyped food". It's all nasty in comparison to the real deal. The black pudding from the farmer's market was better by a long way than any black pudding I have ever eaten before. The sausages were divine. The sticky toffee pudding was much better than anything you can buy (but about the same as making it yourself). The mutton pies were beyond compare. We haven't had a duff item yet.
The downside is that farmers' markets are more expensive than supermarkets. And there is a lot in the news at the moment about soaring food prices here in the UK, which may harm farmer's markets as more people search for cheap food rather than quality food. But food is not yet really expensive. In fact food is still really really cheap and has been for decades. In a country where many poor people are overweight, you can see that food must be very cheap.
What is the role of farmer's markets? Are they just a luxury for the middle-classes? If you are really on the breadline, you won't be able to afford farmer's market prices. But I think many people on modest incomes could probably afford to buy great quality meat and cheese from the farmer's market by eating less meat and cooking more from scratch rather than eating ready meals. Of course some families already cook everything from scratch - Bean Sprouts readers probably do this more than most. I know that many Bean Sprouts readers already eat vegetarian at least once a week, which is a great strategy for reducing your food bills and allowing you to buy better quality meat because you are buying less of it. Why not visit your local farmer's market and compare the prices there with your usual supplier. Buy something there and compare the quality with your usual purchasers. Then you can make your own mind up whether it's worth it to your household to buy some things at the farmer's market instead. I've already made my mind up with regards to my household, and I think Stephanie has made her mind up too.
17 comments:
When I bought the half a lamb last week, Dominic said that of course, with the economic down-turn 'real' food like home-grown lambs and free-range chickens are the first to drop off the shopping list. I am trying to buck that trend!
It always seems odd when people from the only nation in the world, having virtually no restaurants in any city in the world boasting their "British Cuisine" or an "English Gourmet Menu," discuss the comparative flavor of food. Ethiopia, a starving country, has more restaurants world wide.
Obesity is no sign of good food.
I think the expense of farmers markets can vary greatly. Ours is no worse than the local supermarkets for most things and some things are actually cheaper for the equivalents (supermarket free range and "finest" ranges). Another thing is that, if you are a regular, you might get deals. We've just been offered half a goat at a very reasonable price by one stall holder.
CSAs are another way to get quality local farm goods at a reasonable price. One of the main reasons food costs are going to rise is the cost of transporting the food. Local farmers may still be competitive for a long while.
Not often someone is brave enough to say that food is too cheap but it certainly seems to be or else why would we throw away 30% of it. We just dont attach any value to it. The obesity problem probably stems from peoples dissatisfaction with their food. It doesnt satisfy so we have more of it, and more of it. We definitely have some issues!!
I love British Cuisine, lancashire hotpot, cornish pasty, soda bread, roasties, fish and chips, deep friend mars bars (no, sorry, not really, that just sneaked in there), haggis,a nice cup of tea.....
Wonderful blog! I came across it yesterday while looking for proof that backing patchwork pieces with paper isn't actually insane and have spent every spare moment since reading back through the archives.
My problem with the local farmers' market is that I can never get to it! It turns up once a month for one day only, and even if I remembered whether it was the first Tuesday it would still pack up and go before I could get out of work. Not fair! I yearn for the days when I was a lazy arts student and lived in a city where the farmers' market appeared reliably every Thursday in the convenient gap between my driving lesson and the 2 o'clock seminar.
It's hard to strike a balance sometimes. To get to my 'local' farmers market I'd have to drive for about half an hour. I honestly don't think I'd end up buying enough to justify that expense.
Fran
hmmm- wish we had a bloke who made cheese at our market! Sounds like you had a fantastic time shopping gals!
We've largely abandoned selling our pork, eggs, vegetables and other produce to the general public. There isn't as great a demand for local produce up here as there is further south, supermarket-conditioned consumers are a pain in the bum, and people want cheap uniform "hygienic" food over our offering (even though it can sometimes be on a par with or slightly cheaper than some supermarket equivalents).
Take eggs. We sell 12-15 half dozens a week to friends and work colleagues of the Other Half. Most of the latter live in or near Aberdeen and are the sort of urban professionals who "buy" the local produce message.
We also do roadside sales from the croft, have signage out, posters in local shops, etc. In four years we've sold nine half dozens! I know from talking to locals that the handful of people who want fresh free-range eggs keep their own chickens while almost everyone else prefers the cheep, clean and uniform battery egg. The latter think our eggs are dirty, odd sizes, laid in dirty fields, etc.
Most of our croft income now comes from selling weaner pigs to other crofters and smallholders to fatten, where the original plan was to have that as a sideline while pork, eggs, fresh fruit and vegetables, and produce were to have been our main income source. (All that value-adding is supposed to increase your returns, but it doesn't work if the market isn't there in the first place.)
Oh, and farmer's markets aren't always what they seem. Not everyone is local, not all produce is local and not all of it may be what it seems.
We dont have a farmers market; not sure I could afford it if there was one. I have had the same budget for 20 years. It included food,toiletries, small items such as undies and small birthday presents for parties, bits for Christmas, that sort of thing. There were 5 of us then. It continued to be the same amount when there were 8 of us. Now there are 7, all adults, and this year for the first time I am beginning to have difficulty keeping within the bounds and it is only used for food and cleaning stuff. I have always cooked from scratch and had to use cheap ingredients. There isnt anywhere much left to go except to grow my own, which I am attempting to do when I'm not at work....
Hi Melanie,
That farmer's market looks great :) Whereabouts is it? I ask because I live not too far from where you do and am always on the look out for a good market. If you're interested, there are ones on the last Sunday of the month on Ashton under Lyne's market ground (huge!) and also the second Sunday of the month at Mossley market(that's not very big though).
This is a great blog-- thanks for writing it. I'm obsessed with food and I've been trying to write more about London restaurants on my own blog http://backwardscity.blogspot.com/ Let me know what you think.
The sticky toffee pudding was much better than anything you can buy (but about the same as making it yourself)
Our local farmers market is abysmal, and I'd have thought living in a city like Glasgow we'd have been championing such a concept. When I go to a farmers market I want to go home with cheese wrapped in cloth, slabs of meat wrapped in greaseproof paper and tied with string - I don't want shrink wrapped plastic offerings from large retailers.
I agree with everything on your post except this:
In a country where many poor people are overweight, you can see that food must be very cheap.
The problem is that the cheap food in this instance tends to be of the Iceland ready made meal variety, with little nutritional value and far too much saturated fat. Cheap food does not necessarily mean quality food.
In saying that, I'm sure I read somewhere that the average food spend these days is 8% of income whereas in the post-war era it was more like 40%. Globalisation has a lot to answer for.
I'm jealous. Nenagh supposedly has a farmer's market on Saturdays: the 1 bus to town is on Tuesdays... If I can get my little rig over, or find a small, cheap four-wheeler here, I might be able to get in, then comes the interesting problem of cart -parking for horses
Killi on Blogspot
小吃餐車加盟連鎖「一條龍的創業模式」複製成功開店經驗
更新日期:2009/08/25 17:19
(中央社訊息服務20090825 16:19:17)大環境不景氣，工作難找，有不少人就想乾脆自己創業當老闆。為強化國內創業能量，五路財神開店總部於8月20日-9月20日舉辦「2009夢幻小餐車創業成果展」歡迎蒞臨參觀。針對國內一窩蜂創業加盟潮，餐車達人陳滌五總監提醒創業者，加盟不失為一條創業捷徑，但若選擇加盟，品牌知名度、產品獨特性及是否擁有差異化優勢就顯得格外重要。
近年來以成本低的小吃餐車最受創業者青睞。沒經驗的失業族 大部份都選擇餐車擺攤，最多人都想在創業市場闖出一片天。在台中成立的五路財神開店總部，小吃餐車用品牌方式來營運，總經理陳滌五用自己的經驗來現身說法。以國人創業首選的小吃餐車來說，如何在同質性高的市場中殺出重圍？雖然是路邊攤小餐車，營運上的重要撇步是關鍵；在企業經營戰略中，唯有領先核心競爭，保持差異化優勢才是生存之道。
陳總分享成功關鍵，「五路財神餐車與其他路邊攤最大的差異化，在於餐車外觀亮眼與眾不同的加分效果，及秉持結合好的小吃產品用品牌方式來經營的理念」。總部成立初期因觀察到傳統路邊攤想要爭得一席之地，大多考量商品創新的迷思，卻忽略創業者經營能否持久性的問題。所以五路財神餐車將傳統小吃商品，用創新工法為策略，顛覆傳統路邊攤的概念，長期下來在台灣建立起最多元品牌的餐車王國。
很多創業者最憂心沒經驗，業界首創從餐車打造、生財器具、原物料配方、技術教學、促銷廣告、開幕指導，「一條龍的創業輔導」模式，使得五路財神餐車品牌特色更為彰顯。陳總說，不景氣下小吃餐車經營是加倍艱辛，建議創業者不但要瞭解小吃經營的核心價值，凸顯產品獨特性及差異化之外還要定期和你商圈的客人互動，「好餐車、好商品、好客人」，三個好，如此才有可能成為「不敗的小吃攤」。
|加盟創業|滷味加盟|加盟|餐車|安親班|廚具||開店|
Hi..this is Ravi Padiyar from Ujjain..India
has anyone been to the farmers market in london?
its great
go check it out
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