COULD YOU SELL AT A FARMERS' MARKET? (March 2005)

Farmers' markets are bringing new life and great food into the heart of North East towns. Among the produce on sale are seasonal vegetables, meat from free-range animals, speciality bread and cakes, farmhouse cheeses and much more. The food is sold directly from the person who produced it. And now, new stallholders are being sought to widen the range of produce on offer. Could this be you?

A team led by Northumbria Larder, the regional food and drink group, is currently seeking new food producers who might be interested in taking a stall. This could apply to farmers looking for a better price for their produce, or people keen to take their first step in selling commercially. And, of course, farmers' markets are not just for farmers - equally welcome are bakers, jam makers, meat pie cooks or producers of a mouth-watering range of other great foods.

"The basic rules are very simple," says Simon Michaels of f3, the local food consultants who are doing the research. "Farmers' markets offer food from the local area, with producers selling only their own produce. It's a great way for new businesses to test the water with minimal outlay, and also an important income stream for many small producers who have something special but cannot get decent prices from wholesalers or supermarkets."

Jo Burrill is typical of a new wave of artisan food producers who are making a business out of farmers' markets. Jo was a tour guide, mainly for American tourists, until foot and mouth struck. Suddenly she had no clients, and had to think fast. She had always made bread, so after testing out recipes on friends and neighbours, cycled down to Hexham Farmers' Market with her first basket of home-baked goodies.

She has never looked back. "I thought I might try it for a year or so before going back to tour guiding, but it's worked really well and I like it better," says Jo. "It's a lot of hard work, mind you. I start with cake mixes on Wednesday, then the sourdoughs start on Thursday, and yeast baking on Friday, so that everything's ready for the Saturday market." She still bakes at home, with two Kenwood mixers and two domestic ovens. She even uses produce from her allotment such as for her amazing blackcurrant sponges, gets eggs from a local farmer, and uses other local ingredients such as onions for her speciality breads.

Another relative newcomer is Tracey Betney, of Broom Mill Farm, West Auckland, County Durham. Tracey has always lived on a farm. She gave up nursing two years ago to help find a new way forward for the farm's ailing pork business. She and husband Matthew had begun to feel that the business was slipping through their hands, with prices dictated by markets in competition on a global scale. The alternative was direct selling - cutting out the middlemen and selling straight to the customer. Farmers' markets were the answer, and now account for about 90 per cent of all their sales. "We use the right breeds and care for them properly, mill our own feed, and home cure the bacon," says Tracey. "That way we know we can produce a whole range of products that taste great and that the customer can trust." Now Tracey is expanding both her range of products, such as smoked meats and black pudding, and her ways of selling, which now include deliveries to local shops. "We have customers as far away as Ireland, who've tasted our bacon at food fairs and now order our produce by mail order."

It is surprisingly easy to start selling at a farmers' market. You need to get your premises and processes approved, and get the appropriate insurances, but this is easily done and either free or pretty cheap.

Anyone who is seriously interested can get more information from the website www.localfood.org.uk/fm or send a postcard to f3 at P.O.Box 1234, BS99 2PG, with your name and address requesting information about selling at farmers' markets in the North East region.

F3 are the local food consultants, who have been commissioned by Northumbria Larder and One NorthEast, the regional development agency, to map existing producers at farmers' markets, and to identify potential new producers who would like to take a stall at a FM, or identify what barriers there are which hold back potential stallholders.

The work is part of a parallel exercise to find ways for farmers' markets across the North East to develop a more secure future. Part of this will include setting up a collaborative enterprise to help all the markets to work together on marketing and other matters.

SANDY DUNCAN, NORTHUMBRIA LARDER.