Farmers Markets

[bogoiler]

well EHO rang me back today ,have to register with them and have a cold room and have ladels to trading standards and thats it ! seams to easy!!!!!

[welsh wizard]

I am very surprised that they have not arranged a visit to see your set up. I was told that I could not trade until my kitchens were passed, as it were.

However I suppose it must be different where you live.

IF I can offer a word of advice, please try and get insured. You may need public as well as product liability for your operation. Basicially if you are selling to catering outlets and not say on a market stall then product liability may be all you need. If however you are going to take your products to market and say someone slips on your sausage you may well need public liability as well. You may well find (as I did) when I applied to do farmers markets I had to carry a �3m liability insurance anyway.

God luck and keep us posted - Cheers WW

[panther]

Don't know if this is of any use to those selling their products, I found a very useful labelling program Visual Labels, 30-day trial available, it has the advantage of a wide range of templates for Avery labels US and European, you can select to print, 1, 2, 3 or whatever, or a full page, quite easy to use, even I can manage to use it. If you only print say 6 out of 21 labels, you can go back and use any position on the sheet to print other labels, quite flexible. Also has a numbering facility. Costs 20 US dollars. Hope you find it useful. http://www.rkssoftware.com/visuallabels/overview.html.

Next time I take a trip over the border I'll have to keep an eye out for a Farmers Market you're at WW, I'll look out my passport.

[welsh wizard]

You will be welcome at any time Panther, as will any member of this site.

I can be found on Ludlow Market on a Wednesday & Friday and once a month at the farmers market.

Ref labels that is very interesting. I use at the moment Microsoft Publisher and buy the labels from ebay but I will look into your recommendation - thanks.

On the market tomorrow I will be selling crab and smoked salmon pate - smoked salmon - wild duck. pheasant and pidgon pies with cider soaked sultanas - Free range chicken pies with smoked bacon - shepards pie made with dexter beef and port - home cured bacon - poached salmon sandwichs and roast parsnip, honey and cider soup. Oh and some local honey - back to the washing up now...........Next week squirell pie, honestly!

Cheers WW

[welsh wizard]

Hi all - help please!

I have gone through the winter selling a range of game pies and smoked game but I want to keep my food seasonal as it were.

I wold be interested if anyone had any ideas on Easter foods as well as Summer Foods.

I already sell a good amount of smoked salmon and I am going to try poached and vac packed salmon but any input would be welcome -

cheers WW

[jpj]

is your salmon cold-smoked? as hot-smoked is great (best straight from the kiln mmm)
easter, erm rabbit. and lamb
summer - salads, fresh made sarnies, chilled soups
how much are you planning to deviate from your present style of set-up? eg pies, sausages and smoked meats etc?

[welsh wizard]

Hi JPJ

At the moment I only do cold smoked salmon mainly because that is what I am set up for and the shelf life is good. Can you advise me of the shelf life of hot smoked once they are vac packed?

Ref Game pies. I am going to sell them for anther month and then move on (keep things fresh as it were). I trialled two different pies this Friday and they went well. They were Chicken breast with smoked bacon, and pork (hand chopped as well as minced) and apple. I will do some venison pies as well in the run up to the Summer and combine it with some cassis.

I was thinking of doing a few ready meals like cottage pie with a leek mash, Chicken and ginger curry or Chilli and see how they went. I have not done sausages for a while so I will do a few of those as well.

Ref Lamb I think that is a good idea and I will combine it with some potato and make shepards pie - nice one.

The other thing I have been toying with is selling olives, sundried toms etc - does anyone have a contact in this area?

Cheers WW

[Vernon Smith]

Hello Lads and Lassies wherever you may be.
Having read through the topic to bring myself up-to-date I am so pleased that the regulations which I have to observe here in the Solomons are absolutely NIL!!! Many of you know that I breed and slaughter my own pigs, make bacon, sausage, ham and salami, at whim and share them with friends and neighbours. Frankly, if I wanted to do likewise back in the UK I would give up. All too hard, so I sympathise with all the red tape you have to deal with in order to pursue our hobby. Whilst I agree that some regulations might be necessary in the Real World I think most are OTT. SMUGLY, Notwithstanding the lack of regulations here I hazard to say I haven't poisoned anyone yet.
All the best with your red-taping,
Vernon

[jpj]

odysea are good for olives (product/price and sourcing) but they do ask for 'cheque before delivery' and they have a large minimum order for free delivery, but their products have a very long life

ref hot smoked salmon - 2 weeks in vac-pac

[bogoiler]

Hello Lads and Lassies wherever you may be.
Having read through the topic to bring myself up-to-date I am so pleased that the regulations which I have to observe here in the Solomons are absolutely NIL!!! Many of you know that I breed and slaughter my own pigs, make bacon, sausage, ham and salami, at whim and share them with friends and neighbours. Frankly, if I wanted to do likewise back in the UK I would give up. All too hard, so I sympathise with all the red tape you have to deal with in order to pursue our hobby. Whilst I agree that some regulations might be necessary in the Real World I think most are OTT. SMUGLY, Notwithstanding the lack of regulations here I hazard to say I haven't poisoned anyone yet.
All the best with your red-taping,
Vernon

the hardest jobis finding out what the regulations are !! when you get EHO saying "well we're not sure what you need !" then its hard to sort out

[welsh wizard]

Hi JPJ

Many thanks for the info - 2 weeks for hot smoked sounds good enough to be commercial. Thanks..........

Do you know if this would change say if I placed a smoked king prawn on top of the salmon before vac packing?

Thanks once again - WW

Hi Vern

Nice to hear from you. Yep the rules and regs are a bind but I suppose it protects us from the cowboys. The sad thing is these goverment departments are woefully under staffed and as such you get all your soldiers in a row and then you wait, and wait and wait for anyone to come and see you.........it can be very frustrating. Also the different departments you have to go through for different aspect of the operation can be daunting. Anyway I think in my next life I will want to go free range as a producer and not be fenced in with various directives that seem to change as often as the wind.

Cheers for now WW

[jpj]

yes it would change, prawns are more perishable plus they get easily squashed at full pressure

[welsh wizard]

Good call JPJ - thanks again

[saucisson]

UKtVfood are showing a series about starting out at Farmers Markets, their doing one featuring a salmon smoker tomorrow which I plan to record. It's called "This little farmer went to market" other shows feature producers of pickles, aberdeen angus burgers and steaks, soups, ice cream, satay, prepacked meals, carribean food, puddings based on eggs, vegetarian dishes. No sausages or bacon alas.

[welsh wizard]

Hi S

I tried to get onto this programe but they were looking for people who lived in and around London at the time so I was out of the running unfortunatly.........

Please tell us what the smoking bit was like.

Cheers WW