I am starting a food market in Plettenberg bay. Our first day is on the
26th September. An auspicious day, according to an astrologer friend. And I’m very excited! We have space for twenty stalls and we already
have seventeen! Fresh local produce is our priority, but we also have healthy
meat, delicious local cheeses, a bakery on the premises, pickles, preserves,
healthy snacks, wholefoods, chocolate and safe cleaning products. The idea was
to create a locally stocked super market.
Worldwide trends point toward more sustainable solutions to food
production and with growing economic pressures, going local is a logical
option. It keeps the money in the community, ensures small scale crop diversity
which reduces the need for pesticides, gives local entrepreneurs an opportunity
to supply on demand and also ensures that the food you eat is yummy, healthy
and fresh!
It’s important to think about where the product comes from, what it’s
made from, what its total environmental impact is. It’s great to buy organic
fruit but when it comes from across the globe, there’s an enormous carbon
footprint to consider. And this is really the point that we are trying to get
across, everything you need is right here and if it’s not here yet, once you
create the space for it, it will quickly appear!
I’m learning a great many things through this process, for example,
cheese makers are very busy people! I’ve also learnt that it’s almost as
impossible to get healthy beef off a farm which sells its meat through the
usual avenues as it is to buy raw milk. I remember going into a health shop
once and asking the lady if she had any for sale, she asked me if I was an
undercover policewoman! This is serious stuff; the health of the masses is at
stake, steak…either way they’d get their fingers burnt!
It’s helpful to remember that this is very much a cultural thing which
can therefore be amended. In Europe , for
example, it is considered sacrilegious to use pasteurized milk to make cheese.
And most Eastern and African countries consume mostly raw milk. It is just a
mindset and based on that alone, maybe it should be a choice?
That aside, I’ve learnt that free range chicken and free range pork
often come from the same farm, if you know why please let me know! I’ve also
learnt that starting a market is all about dealing with produce, and it is also
all about dealing with people! I have learnt so much about making myself
understood, which can only happen once I truly grasp what it is I’m trying to
say! And do not underestimate this simple truth, we all too often have a sense
of how we feel and react on that before we have properly assessed our emotions
and motivations.
I am starting this Market with a business partner whom I know quite
well, which is very different from very well! But this process has given us the
opportunity to concentrate on the job at hand, to compliment one another’s strong
points, and communicate clearly, a trait often tossed by the way-side in the
face of familiarity. And of course we both have the same vision for our market:
healthy body, healthy planet, it’s so simple when you see it like that!
Wish us luck! We are embarking on an adventure filled with appetizing
delicacies and apathetic emails, tasty discoveries and deadline decision making,
hidden ingredients, restrictive regulations, entrepreneurs, introspection, produce, press, pressure, and a
deep knowing that if and when we get this right, it's going to taste great!
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