By any obvious measure the Saturday market on the harbour front is flourishing. The aisles are full, the visitor cars back up along the approach road, and the good stalls sell out by early afternoon. Ask the stallholders how business is, though, and the answers are more complicated than the crowds suggest.
The worry is not demand, which is strong, but supply and cost. Several producers say that what they sell is increasingly bought in from further afield rather than grown or made nearby, because the local sources they once relied on have thinned out.
A market that looks local and is less so
A market can be busy and still be drifting away from the thing that made it worth visiting. When the produce comes from three counties over, the stall is really a shop with a nicer view.
- Rising stall fees and transport costs are squeezing the smallest traders hardest.
- Some staple local products are now supplemented with goods bought in wholesale.
- Newer stalls skew toward prepared food for visitors rather than raw local produce.
The market organisers are aware of the tension and say they want to keep the balance tilted toward genuinely local sellers. The stallholders would like to believe them, but for now they are watching their margins more closely than the queues.
Related: Business & Work · changing shops on Quay Street
Further reading: Farmers' markets
