Farmers Markets

[BriCan]

Hi Brican

Any chance of your recipe for steak and bacon then?

By all means.

We are other side of the pond so pose no threat

To be honest I do not think there would be much of a treat

Maybe a vac pac sample sent Par Avion

pm me with an address.

Regards Gazza.

PS Any photos?

Sorry, they get eaten too quick for the shutter bug.

[BriCan]

HI Brican, sorry for late reply but I have been fetstivalising this week, christ my ears hurt, all that bloody noise!

You too, all that wailing that went on at the one I was at.

anyway 8500 x 60% = 5100 / 2 = 2500 x 5% (I'm sure) = 2678 looks good to me. But if you are really confidet push it a bit higher.

the main rule is "you will never win". If you take stuff home you kick yourself for over production and if you run out too quickly you kick yourself for under production. After attending 30+ festivals I have only been sold out once with 5m to go, at full price. What I tend to do is work out the cost of each product. I then slightly over cater and with half an hour to go before the festival closes hawk the remaining stock at just 50% above cost. So for example if a steak burger costs me 80p to produce, bread roll 20p, 10p for sauce, onions and gas for cooking, 25p for staff, 20p for pitch fee I have a total burger cost price of £1.65. I would then sell for £3.50 and bring this down to £2.50 at the end of the day. As long as you make more than your costs you are fine.

Ended up not too bad considering, Friday was 28 C. and sunny, day of the event was 15 C and rain Sunday was 28 C and sunny. Oh well a good learning experience, sold about 2/3rds of our products.

[Ruralidle]

Well, after many months of saying I would do it I finally got around to it on Thursday (11th) - I went to a Farmer's Market where Welsh Wizard plies his trade. Not only was it great to meet him but we got chance to sample some of his produce. We tried one of his Gloucester Old Spots sausages and it was delicious, good and meaty with a nice level of seasoning. It will be a sausage we would choose to eat and we will be back when he has some for sale in their uncooked form. We also sampled his bacon and it was good, with not too much salt and a hint of treacle and juniper. In addition to the samples we splashed out on one of WW's Gloucester Old Spot pork pies. The pastry was good and crisp and not too greasy whilst the filling was fine and meaty and nicely seasoned. All in all, my wife and I agree that it is one of the best pork pies we have ever eaten.

it was great to meet WW and his daughter (the apple pies they had made looked great but we have an orchard full of our own apples that we have to find a use for) and even better to taste his lovely produce. Congratulations WW, keep up the good work, I look forward to seeing you again soon.

[welsh wizard]

Thank you Ruralidle, most kind. It is always a pleaseure to meet a fellow forum member (in fact its a pleasure to meet any customer ) and if anyone is this way they will be made more than welcome.

Cheers and hope you enjoyed your meal, WW

[sarah]

Hi

Am off to do the very first ever (and mine!) Farmers Market here in the Islands on Saturday . Am all sorted, food packaged, labelled , priced etc, even remembered my cash float but have in fact probably fogotten something vital!!
The only bit I'm not looking forward to is the 4am departure time for the 4 hour rough track drive to get there
Trust me everything will be extremely well packed
Have got everything from sausages, pate, breads, cakes, biscuits and a range of hand knits....looking forward to it!
Watch this space for news on how it goes

[Ruralidle]

Hello Sarah

Hope it goes well for you. Make sure your eggs (if you have any) are wrapped in lots of cotton wool .

[DanMcG]

Four hour drive.
I hope it goes great for you and you sell out.

[welsh wizard]

With that drive don't forget your sense of humour !.

Seriously you will have a blast just pray for good weather

Good luck WW

[sarah]

Sold just about everything....yippeee!!!
Good learning curve though, have now sussed what to take and what not to take etc.
Good job it was indoors as a blizzard with 80 mph winds blew up late Friday night so our crack of dawn drive on Saturday was actually a little over 5 hours
Can't wait for the next one!
The Foreign Commonwealth office has given our Rural Business Association a grant of several thousand pounds which will be used to boost the farmers markets and to try and set up positive links between producers and suppliers etc, it's all great news for the local economy.
I even managed to sell all 14 dozen eggs for £5.50 a dozen! (We have very poor and almost non existent supply routes here so the farmer can just about demand any price!) I originally was going to sell them for £4 a doz then saw everyone elses prices and immediately upped my prices to match!

[Ruralidle]

Great stuff. Congratulations. It is interesting to hear about life in the Falklands. A 5 hour drive - especially early in the morning - would get me to Glasgow or Edinburgh to the north and nearly Lands End in the south! As for £5.50 per dozen for eggs, we get less than half of that! Great for the consumer but not so good for the supplier, especially with the way feed price have increased. Mind you, I suspect that the the feed costs are far higher in the Islands.

Please keep us up to date with your Farmers' Market experiences. Good luck for the next one!

[welsh wizard]

Well done Sarah

How many producers were there and was it busy? Anyone cooking and if so what was it? I have a friend in the RAF who goes your way sometimes and he has promised me a trip over there to go sea trout fishing - but still waiting !




Keep it coming. Cheers WW

[welsh wizard]

OK guess what, I am on the scrounge - again

My Cray fish supplier has just jacked his prices up by a massive 50%! well i can not afford to play that game soooo I am looking for a slightly unusual sandwich filling to substituite the cray fish. The only criteria really is the time the sandwich takes to make, it has to be fairly quick. Anyway if you have any ideas I would be VERY grateful.

Thanks WW

[kimgary]

Hi

Could you not sustitute with brown shrimp, I think they get overlooked and consider their flavour to be superior to prawns etc, ba****d to peel though

Regards Gazza.

[Ruralidle]

Hi Gazza

Brown prawns are delish but you would need quite a lot in a sandwich and they are not that cheap (probably because I can't get them in any quantity, the packs always seem to be 250g not 2500g)!

[welsh wizard]

Shrimp are really expensive unfortunately so its a no go but thanks anyway. It doesn't have to be fish though. I was thinking smoked brie and avocado

Cheers WW .