I sense a growing backlash to supermarkets in this country that is, from my point of view, very welcome. However, at present, supermarkets are far from worried. The reason is simple, there is almost no competition to draw people away; customers may be as discontented as hell, but if they have nowhere else to shop, they are stuck.

A small flash of hope has been poking its nose over the distant Horizon in the form of the farmers market. These occasionally exceptional events, such as the one in Stroud, Gloucestershire (pictured here), can really help bring not just good food to the table, but the excitement and fun that should surround food shopping. And in their own way, they are achieving this. But there are problems; problems that stop the farmers market making the full difference that it should.

Every last Friday in the month, a farmers market comes to the old market town of Stony Stratford in Buckinghamshire. This has been happening now for more than a year. It opens at 8am and closes at 2am. However, this market is not the big, family orientated affair of the Stroud Market. It is a collection of about 7 stalls, stuffed in the corner of the former Market Square which is now a car park. The customers are middle class, mostly retired people. The food is good, but at a very high price. And there is that timing issue - Friday morning and only once a month.

For most people that is hopeless. They work on Fridays, they like to shop weekly, not monthly, and they need a range of goods, not just meat, fish and organic veggies. The odd time I have actually made it down to this market there are only a few shoppers, and last time I noticed that some of the better suppliers had given up and were no longer there. 

As you can imagine, our local Budgen's let alone the bigger supermarkets are far from losing sleep over this or the other farmers markets in the area. Even the ones held at the weekend are small, pointless affairs. And this is repeated up and down the country. Yes, there are the big, fantastic markets, but they are few - the majority of farmers markets are small and infrequent.

Getting people to shop for better food means breaking habits. You need to stop them going to the supermarket because it is convenient, and you need to stop them from going because it is cheap. But simply telling them that a farmers market or high street is the better option is not enough. You have to make it the better option. And that means you must compete.

The farmers market but be at least weekly, or twice weekly. It must be priced much closer to the supermarkets. It needs to offer other goods to give more reasons to visit - clothes, arts and crafts, toys. Maybe also include a small car boot area. It needs to be a minimum 50 stalls so that people feel they have got value.

Currently, many farmers markets, especially those close to large urban areas, are small affairs trying to pick up on the trend of the farmers market as pushed by TV chefs like Rick Stein and Hugh Fernley-Withenstall. But they are priced out of many peoples pocket and mean a side trip to just pick up a couple of items. 

Farmers markets need to be priced, designed, located and pushed in the same way as is a supermarket. People wont use them just because they are nice, they will use them because they compete. And if they don't compete, they will simply remain a small side issue for middle class people being trendy. And for the supermarkets, they wont even make it to the ranks of an idle distraction.

Nick Clegg MP

There is a possible solution, however, and that is in philanthropy. If a website were set up that included ALL farm shops, farmers markets etc, and then that site, with the aid of philanthropic donation, were to be advertised as heavily as the supermarkets, then maybe we could see movement away from the trolley sector and into the market sector. But unless people find value, both in price and range, when they get to the markets, then it would be worth nothing.

We could learn a lot here from both our ancestors who created the market towns we love to boast about and from towns in places like France which still have weekly, even daily markets that the supermarkets are finding it very hard to shift - and believe me, they are working all out to wipe the French market off the face of the planet.

Could their be a revival of the market? Could there be success for the good food brigade? I believe it nearly impossible - but nearly is not completely. It has to be worth working at. 

Tags: farmer market trolleygarchs supermarket food organic marketing
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