Stroud Farmers Market is best in country and update on Heinz campaign

Various food related updates in this blog entry...Farmers Market, Heinz, Tesco and GM:

Stroud Farmers' Market which started in 1999 has been named the best in the UK. The market which has more than 45 stalls each Saturday has been awarded the Certified Farmers' Market of the Year 2008 by FARMA - the National Farm Retail and Markets Association. Huge congratulations must go to Stroud market organisers, husband and wife team, Kardien and Clare Gerbrands.

Clare is quoted in The Citizen saying: "We are delighted. The customers will be so proud and so will the stallholders. We are kind of floating really. We never thought we could win it because Stroud is such a small town." Last year, the award went to Edinburgh.

The "unique community experience" offered by Stroud Farmers' Market clinched this year's award of the FARMA engraved market bell. The judges' citation read: "Farmers' markets are lively and personal, and none more so than Stroud, where organisers use a dizzying mix of innovation, marketing, publicity and retail skills to weave a unique community experience. For being at the leading edge of everything about farmers' markets, energy and commitment, Stroud is the national winner 2008."

Update on Heinz campaign

See previous blogs by scrolling down - 5th and 10th October - Heinz have now responded to pressures to remove their new Farmers Market soup range - they will change their labels saying that the products are made from the UK and other countries and also say they are "Inspired by farmers markets" on the front of the tin - this is still nonsense and goes no where near far enough. As Clare said previously: "Everything is fresh and local at farmers' markets - and that soup is neither. There's no reason for Heinz to be using the name Farmers' Markets - they are nothing to do with farmers' markets."

The campaign is now moving to expand and go national with petitions and also to urge people to write to the Advertising Standards and not buy the soup.

This seems a bad move by Heinz who will receive plenty of adverse publicity about this...

Last Tesco-free town under threat

Meanwhile I was astonished to learn that Harrogate is one of only four places in the UK not to have been colonised by Tescos - the others are the Shetlands, Orkney and the Outer Hebrides! Harrogate is now under threat - read more here.

GM funding revealed

The massive funding of GM by the Government has been revealed - £50m per year for biotech industries while only £1.6m goes to organic farming. Read local Green party letter here.

This comment re the Farmers Market award was also in The Citizen:

IT'S MY FOOD NIRVANA

National food critic Matthew Fort, who lives in Stroud, described the market as his 'personal food nirvana'.Mr Fort (pictured) wrote in his column in the Guardian on Saturday about the market. He said: "One of the markets covered by Fork is my personal food nirvana, Stroud farmers' market, where this column began all those calories ago. The market has gone weekly but lost none of its energy. I bought duck legs to confit, a couple of lamb breasts and a bag full of less usual apples."