As regular readers will know Farmers’ Markets, or as I prefer to call them Local Produce Markets are a real favourite of mine as well as food festivals. There’s so much to try, taste and then buy from real artisan producers. Some markets have not stopped during the Covid-19 lockdown, whilst others went to virtual markets with phone and collect service. But as I write this markets are beginning to return to normal, well as normal as it is at present. Sadly food festivals have been decimated with one or two still hoping to possibly run in the autumn, but we wait and see.
Welsh Country magazine spoke to a number of businesses that have markets as a big part of the selling of their products.
So let’s start with a newish business based in the Flintshire, the Carslake Tea Company, this is their story:
Carslake Tea Company
We are a family loose leaf tea business established in 2015. We are passionate about tea and supply our customers with top quality loose leaf tea, biodegradable tea pyramids, beautiful anwd functional Japanese tea pots and other tea accessories. Our tea blends include our Great Taste Award winning Organic Mojito Green Tea and Christmas Black Tea, but our range of blends are traditional, diverse and quirky, including such blends as Chocolate Chilli Tea and Pina Colada Fruit infusion.
I am the only full time employee, with my partner and our 19 year old son helping to run the business in the evenings and weekends, although my partner is employed full time and our son is at university.
We have built the business steadily from zero annual turnover over the 5 years and were continuing to grow before the coronavirus pandemic struck the world.
Around 75% of our business is face to face retail sales at Farmers Markets, various food festivals including Caernarfon, Beaumaris, Ludlow, Mold, Menai and Bolton, plus flower shows and large public events, including Southport Flower Show, Shrewsbury Flower show, with the remaining 25% being online sales from our website.
As a result of the coronavirus pandemic, all our potential food festivals and large public events have been cancelled at present, until at least the end of September. At this point we fear this might be the case until the end of 2020, although we are optimistic that our local farmers’ markets will re-open at some stage. As we are a home based business we are not entitled to any of the current Government grants or funding and therefore the business’s sole turnover at the moment is from online or telephone sales.
Visit: www.carslaketea.co.uk
Now staying in the north East of Wales, but in the neighbouring county of Wrexham, Mike from Pen-y-lan Pork tells of the ups and downs of a Welsh food producer.
Pen-y-Lan Pork
Pen-y-Lan Pork is a well-known feature at some of the UK’s most prestigious food festivals and farmers’ markets. Our business has been producing some of the finest sausages in Wales for around 17 years.
But it hasn’t been plain sailing, I have always found pigs great animals and extremely intelligent and yet they are probably the one animal that is given the raw deal. We can eat near enough everything from a pig should you choose, but yet they are the most inexpensive producer of food compared to lamb and beef.
When I started all those years ago I was an engineer for a cereal producer and started keeping a handful of pigs and feeding them on the waste produce from cereal manufacturing, amongst pig feed and spent grains from a local brewery.
I then would sell the meat as half boxes of pork. It went OK, but soon came to realise that keeping pigs is a real science. They can soon put on a lot of fat if not managed correctly, the breed of pig can have a significant influence on the amount of fat/meat that can be produced and last, but not least, they love escaping.
We even had a pig that knew how to earth out the electric fence, she used to drop a branch on the fence, which then earthed itself and let the others escape.
Everything seemed to be going OK until August 2008 when I fell from a tree while cutting branches and broke my spine in two places leaving me paralysed from the waist down and with the prognosis of never being able to walk again. After months of rehabilitation at the Gobown Orthopaedic and defeating the medical experts I managed to get myself mobile and eventually walking.
During this time all the pigs had to go and my whole life was turned upside down both physically and mentally. I really struggled and suffered with depression which hit me hard.
I went back to work within 12 months and was in an office environment which I wasn’t really suited to. After 4 years of the corporate palaver I decided enough was enough and left what was a well-paid job with great prospects, lots of time off and a great lifestyle, to then work seven days a week, every hour god sends to look after pigs and produce sausages.
With tongue in cheek, I wish I had done it sooner, I reckon I must have banged my head hard as well as breaking my back.
Both Wendy (my wife) and I have built the business up to be a well-recognised brand around the Wrexham & North West England area.
When Covid-19 hit obviously the supplies to the hospitality sector dried up and devastatingly no more markets. Quickly we knew we had to diversify, so we set up a weekly door to door delivery service within a 40 miles of Wrexham and also a next day courier service. We then introduced a hamper scheme offering other small artisan producers a chance to showcase and sell their wares. It’s hard and you have to be really pushing it all the time. We do a weekly video shoot for Facebook and that works well.
Going forward we are still going to continue with the delivery service, the older generation much prefer it and feel safer.
Covid-19 has helped us think outside the box and with love and determination continue to produce (in my opinion) probably Wales’s best sausages.
Contact mikeford01@googlemail.com for enquiries.
For six months of the year many food and drink producers lead a double life, they are at home producing products and then out on the road nomadically from one show/festival to the next. Cathy from Case for Cooking tells Welsh Country about her Covid-19 experience.
Case for Cooking
Like many small food businesses, we’ve seen a full calendar of food shows cancelled or postponed during lockdown. As a new business trying to get our brand and products out to new customers, has been particularly hard, but we’ve been trying to put our now ‘free’ weekends to good use!
We’ve been developing new products, including curry pastes, cooking pastes and cooking sauces. We’ve increased the range of products we offer through our local market, Carmarthen Food, to include new spice mixes and our own black garlic.
Our online shop has remained open for business throughout. Where possible, we’ve changed our packaging to make products such as our spice rubs and refill packs cheaper to post and easier to fit through the letterbox.
We’re hugely grateful to our existing customers for keeping us going, but we can’t wait until the festivals and shows start up again. Writing compliment slips just isn’t the same!
Visit: www.caseforcooking.co.uk
Across the show/festival circuit and at the local markets there is a superb family feeling amongst the traders. Just like families there is the odd argument but if anyone wants help for whatever reason fellow traders will always be there. Janine from Daisy Graze demonstrates how producers around Cowbridge are really there for each other.
Daisy Graze
It has been a strange time for us all and a very busy one for me. Back in January I had the opportunity to have a fortnightly stall at Cowbridge Farmers’ Market. Things were going on as normal and I was slowly establishing myself as a business at the market and then Covid-19 happened.
All of a sudden I was at the market weekly because lots of the stallholders had decided to shield or self-isolate or even found themselves too busy fulfilling existing customer orders due to demand.
The regulars kept coming but we were all worried that with less to offer they would opt to queue at the supermarket. A few of us got together and thought how can we provide as many products as possible and serve the community with their provisions. In the end the solution was simple. We have less stalls than before Covid-19 happened but we double or triple up on what we are selling. So as well as selling my preserves and conserves I became the bread queen. Every Saturday morning I arrive at the market set up my stall and wait for Windy Wick Bakery to deliver me her amazing yeasted and sourdough breads for me to sell (while she was baking to fulfil orders).
Other stalls did the same with coffee, cake and eggs all being sold together trying to provide as full a service as possible. This also made me diversify slightly, bagging up wild garlic and other foraged herbs to make salad bags and also making Elderflower Cordial.
I was also asked to join The Cowbridge Food Collective which is a brilliant click and collect service for local produce with even more goodies available than the market. The collective works with customers ordering on line through the week and then a drive-thru collection is organised on the Thursday night. It is all done with no contact apart from opening the car boot.
Spending time with my family has meant that I have had much more time outside in my local woods and meadows foraging. My seven year old son has learnt so much from me and I have researched plants and added many more to my foraging list.
I hope that one of the positives that comes out of lockdown is that people will appreciate local products and supply.
Visit: daisygraze.co.uk
Welsh Country cannot agree more with Daisy Graze’s last comment and have been saying buy local for years and is more important now than ever. They can call it supporting but in reality by buying locally, people are doing themselves a huge favour as well. They will know where their food and drink comes from. They will know that the food and drink has little or no preservative – colourings or E numbers – they will know that the money they spend tends to stay in the local area, making the local/ regional economy better for all including themselves.
Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4 Part 6 Part 7
