As you may know 2019 has been our 20th Anniversary and this milestone has been celebrated at each of our 8 venues with lots of cake,bunting,live music and even sunshine!
At Crewkerne the event took the form of a collaboration with ‘Eat Festival’ for a whole day of festivities.
The last 20 years have been quite a journey from those optimistic pioneering early years and it is true to say that we have weathered many metaphorical,literal and financial storms but we have survived when many Farmers Market organisations haven’t and are ‘Fighting fit’ for the next decade.
We have strengthened our collaborations within the communities we serve and remain thankful for the continued support of Thatcher & Hallam Solicitors www.th-law.co.uk who finance many of our annual leaflets,banners and adverts and who offer our members free legal advice regarding their businesses.
Similarly Midsomer Norton & Keynsham Town Councils provide grants for leaflet distributions,canopy repairs adverts and live music.
This year has seen us establish a new link with The School of Social Enterprise’ based in Dartington who offer support and free training to not for profit businesses such as SFM. They have given us £1,200 to make our web-site mobile & tablet friendly and to commision a designer to give us a marketing makeover with a fresh re-brand….watch this space over the next 6 months for the results.
We are also ‘crossing our fingers’ for lottery funding to finance creative ways to enhance our markets and encourage the wider community to participate in and benefit from our events.
We have also reviewed and updated our Criteria and now insist on Free Range Eggs for sale or use in Baked products. In reality this was just a formality as all of our existing members had a free range egg policy.
We are also asking that new and existing members help to reduce single use plastics in their packaging where possible.Also in the light of recent high profile tragedies we insist that members provide information to customers of potential allergens in their products.
We are also excited to have become members of ‘Visit Somerset’ and are looking forward to working with them to promote local food and drink.
We wish all our customers a happy New Year and look forward to seeing you at our Farmers Markets.
