Welcome to the Elham Farmers’ Market

****************************************************************************************

The market will be held in Elham Village Hall on Sunday 23 November.

****************************************************************************************

Shoppers at Elham Farmers’ Market in south east Kent have joined a growing revolution –  a return to eating locally-produced seasonal produce.

The Fife Diet, where 600 people in Scotland chose to live on locally-produced food for one year, has been well publicised in the media. Tempting viewers to eat seasonally has been the message from TV chef Valentine Warner in his series What to eat now. As the BBC publicity accompanying the program said: “If you eat food that’s in season you get the best flavour and the best bargains. Why eat anything else?”

Elham Farmers’ Market gives consumers the opportunity to endorse that statement. Certainly the food sold is local and seasonal (so sorry, you will never find lemons and oranges, or strawberries in winter). But is it a bargain? Our shoppers tell us it is. Many do not use cars to come to the market, so saving on petrol. They can buy exactly the right amount of food they want as it is not pre-packed by weight, so avoiding waste. Some items are cheaper than in supermarkets because they are sold directly by the producer, so saving on transport costs and expensive middlemen and distribution networks.  

Our producers do their best to attend regularly. As small producers, however, they do not have staff to replace them if, as sometimes happens, they cannot come to the market because their car has broken down or they have gone down with a bad cold. So we apologise to our regular shoppers if they are sometimes disappointed not to find one of our regular stalls.  

Elham Farmers’ Market in the news
The market and our meat producer, Kevin Lamb of Parsonage Farm in North Elham, were featured in a page-long article in the latest edition of the Orchid, the newspaper of the Kent Downs Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty. Copies are available from local shops, tourist outlets and tourist information centres. You will also shortly be able to view a copy on the AONB website, http://www.kentdowns.org.uk.

Things to look forward to at Elham Farmers’ Market in November and December:

• Buy Christmas gifts, cards, calendars and decorations on 23 November when a number of local craftspeople will attend the market.
• Plan for Christmas now and place your orders with our producers for any food you want to collect at the last market of the year, Sunday 21 December. Exceptionally this market is on the third Sunday on the month, specifically to meet the needs of our shoppers leading up to Christmas. The next market after that will be on Sunday 11 January.  

Elham Farmers’ Market is a place for shoppers to meet, to buy quality, local food at fair prices and meet the producers. It helps the environment by reducing food miles and encourages healthy eating by making fresh, high-quality food available in season and at realistic prices.

Come and find out for yourselves every second and fourth Sunday of the month from 11.00 to 13.00 on the Triangle opposite Elham School.

Find out what’s in season now

Read this month’s recipes from Bev Price of Seafayre.