News

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.

On Sunday December 22nd  the ‘BIG CHRISTMAS FARMERS MARKET’ takes place at the Cheese & Grain in Frome from 10am-2pm.

Tradition dictates that everyone shops for the big day with Turkeys & chipolata’s to be collected ,cheeses to be tasted, Christmas tipples to be chosen and boxing day chutneys selected!

We also cater for vegans in the family and have a stall dedicated to plant based desserts!

Always a great source of last minute edible gifts for unexpected visitors and a wonderful sociable experience at the Cheese & Grain with the cafe open for refreshments.

& no one should go home without their brussel sprout tree!!

A severe storm is headed for the south West and so the organisers have been forced to cancel the Frome Independent event- we will be however holding a farmers market at Boyles Cross next Saturday 9th March!

With regret we must cancel both Axbridge & Midsomer Norton Markets on Saturday Feb 2nd,due to extreme snow & ice

In 1999 we launched our first market in Glastonbury and began to build up a network of regular markets around the county of Somerset and Bath & North East Somerset. Twenty years on and we are still going strong and will this year be celebrating our anniversary at each of our markets throughout the year…we’ll give out more details as the year progresses.

However as we step into our 3rd decade we are mindful of our original purpose and role within the local agricultural and food economy. Since we began environmental issues have become ever more urgent ,the very real effects of climate change and plastic pollution more apparent and many species of wildlife extinct or in danger.

We were created from ‘Agenda 21’ funding as a direct result of the 1st climate change summit in Rio when the United Nation member states developed an action plan that each local government area should draw up its own plan to ‘act locally’ to prevent climate change by promoting local initiatives focusing on sustainable development and counteracting the damaging effects of globalisation.

In our small way we began pioneering a network of Farmers Markets supporting local food production. We were  aiming to reverse the demise of small family farms and re-introducing the concept of buying local food directly from farmers and growers, brewers & cheese & cider makers,bakers,chefs & preserve makers. Trust was built up between customer and food producers who serve as an antidote to mass produced industrial scale farming and food production which adds nothing to the environment,local economy ,animal welfare and offers questionable nutritional value to the consumer.

We enforced low mileage and asked that non farmers use local ingredients where possible. We also encouraged shoppers to bring their own bags or purchase one of our re-usable jute bags of which 4,000 were produced over the last 10 years!

However we all recognise that the spotlight is now urgently on reducing single use ,non-renewable plastics so we are urging our members to evaluate their current packaging to ensure it can be re-cycled,re-used,compostable,or biodegradable depending on what they are producing.

We will share the good practice of our existing members and encourage new members  to start off using the most environmentally friendly packaging for their produce.

Finally we thank and applaud our many customers who continue to bring their own re-usable bags and some of whom are also bringing along their own containers!

A Happy 2019 to you all.