Moseley Farmers' Market Birmingham
The village market on the edge of a city; the glue that bonds the community together.
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Moseley Village has a brand new station. I didn’t know, when I walked onto the concourse that it had only been open a few days and previously, residents had to use buses or cars to get home. I’m used to the abrupt height and noise of Birmingham New Street, but here, all is quiet and peace; gardens and trees, small shops and a church yard. No signs for the market but I know it’s just a five minute walk away. Easy enough to stall spot, and there they are, ranged along the pavement on Alcaster Road and the village green, tightly packed together in the morning sun. It’s busy; a sunny day helps. The first stalls I encounter are selling pizza, the next, a range of cheese, followed by olives and olive oil.
The community stall gives out maps that show the key to stalls; regulars, hot food, non-local, craft, or community info stall. It even marks queue direction and where there are disabled ramps. They create this map for every monthly market. It shows that the stalls I first encountered are classed as non local. The next stall, out on its own island is selling fish. David Isgrove, founder of the market tells me that Moseley village used to have a very popular fish shop, but when they could no longer afford to be there, David offered them a place on the market, as the right thing to do.
Founded by David in August 2000 at the suggestion of his wife, the market was launched to boost the local community and economy, starting off with 12 stalls at the Moseley Festival. It’s now an award winning monthly market with around 60 stalls.
There’s a bright and happy atmosphere, the stalls crowded with shoppers with bags, dogs and children. A group of volunteers are gathered around the community stall, chatting to customers, and volunteer director Radley Russell has a big smile on his face as he introduces me to his team. It’s clear he loves the market and adores being part of it.
Where the pavement is narrow, they’ve been allowed to cone off a section of the road to allow for more comfortable navigation and less overcrowding. Stall holders are uniformly cheerful, eager and happy to chat to customers. I enjoyed conversations with the knowledgable cheesemaker at Lightwood Cheeses, and Walled garden flowers amongst others.
According to the map there are 58 stalls here today ranging from plants and flowers as pictured up top, to mushrooms, pies, preserves, bakeries, game, poultry and meat, vegetables, alcohol, from Sloe gin to local beer and vineyards, hot food and craft stalls.
There are stalls here that need David’s explanation. And that’s why farmers’ markets vary so much; each have their own rules. It’s why when I talked to David and Radley that I pressed for an answer to the question about farmers’ market definitions.
Radley muses; ‘‘I don’t think I can give a definition because I think the definition varies in quite a lot of ways but I would say, to me a farmers’ market is a place to meet to come to shop to buy products and enjoy but also to bring the country into the city.’’
David adds;
‘‘For me a real farmers market is is one where you actually have local produce, nothing is bought in wholesale and where the farmers or the people are processing farm foods or materials which come from the land.’’
David pushes in a different direction and it’s interesting to hear his arguments; on our tour around the market he points out a stall selling pottery made from local clay; a local resource.
‘‘As long as you’re actually making it and turning it into something which is better; for example smoked salmon; we had a person bringing in organic salmon and smoking it, therefore they were adding value to it that was acceptable, alongside people selling veg and fruit and meat and pies and people processing the food, so to me that is a real farmers market.’’
He adds; farmers’ markets also need, if they’re going to be successful, to think of their communities. If you’re in the middle of the country you can’t have fish for example but if the fish supplier is able to tell you where the fish were actually fished from, I think that’s valid because otherwise the community suffers and you’ve cut out an actual whole type of food that they can’t otherwise have.’
On rules and what they allow, Radley says;
‘‘To us, the food has to be real, it has to be very authentic. And it has to have a real percentage of it being real produce.’’
David offers; ‘‘One of the issues we had early on, which made us be more intent on our rules, was a guy with a pig farm who produced sausages. After about a year or so, he had expanded to about another 20 farmers markets. And I said, hang on, has he increased his pigs? No. How has he actually managed to provide the sausages? Tracing them, we realized he was bringing them in wholesale to supplement his own. And so we had to say, sorry, goodbye. He didn’t like it, but we said no. And that made us think, right, we’ve got to have and follow set rules.’’
Radley explains that being in a multicultural city, they get quite a number of cultures wanting to sell their food. They have to explain that ingredients can’t be bought in from supermarkets or imported otherwise, the market team have to say no.
The new pizza stall I saw at the top of the market has been matched with other stalls; vegetable and meat farms so he can source from them.
‘‘It’s like matchmaking inside the market. Traceability.’’ I heard that they’d sold out.
I see stalls at the market that we would never give space to at London Farmers’ Markets; it’s clear that no single model can work for every farmers’ market, but there has to be a base line, a touchstone, otherwise, what is a farmers’ market?
The team are excited about the new train station which may help to increase footfall at an already busy monthly market.
‘‘People come from across the country. If the market was daily it would be a different setup, we wouldn’t have the same traders so if people wanted to come to a specific trader they wouldn’t know when they would be there. We did a survey amongst customers and stallholders on whether we should go twice a month and the overwhelming response from people particularly customers was no because they can go to the other markets.’’
Earlier on in our meeting, both David and Radley had emphasised the community spirit of the market, and when I’d asked why the market was monthly rather than weekly, they replied
‘‘We work in conjunction with other farmers markets King’s Heath and King’s Norton, we share the vibe with the community, we share the space amongst the city in the south of Birmingham.
‘‘We know who our customers are, they’re very regular, they’re very loyal, they know when the market’s on, they also know our sister market; I tend to go to King’s Heath on the first Saturday and I see the same customers there because most of the traders are there as well.’’
David emphasises the sense of community, and localism.
‘‘We know where they live. We know them by face and by name. The ones we don’t know, new customers will come again. With the new station, there’s an influx of people from elsewhere, and what I’d like to do is to do a survey whereby people are able to put up their postcode where they actually come from, so we can actually see. And that’s where I would like, I’m going to suggest we plan, and also to do another count survey at all our five entrances, or six entrances.’’
‘‘Over the course of the morning, we find that the older customers come first thing, then we get the young people, and then we get all the stragglers after that. Moving from one to the other.
‘‘Izzy was talking to some customers who said they had travelled from Litchfield, Nuneaton, (about an hour away by car). I’ve also found people from the Black Country, Wolverhampton, Dudley, and also from Bicester which is about 40 miles away. A customer came from Canada, because he saw us on the BBC, had family nearby, saw Moseley Farmers Market, and he decided to come.’’
What would Radley like to happen to the market if anything were possible?
‘‘If I had a magic wand I would want more stalls; again we’re going back to restrictions and challenges.’’
There’s a good range of stalls on the market; what is missing, what do customers ask for?
‘‘Raw milk and heritage flour, also more fruit. We lost our amazing person who was with us from the start, they had a huge orchard and lots of different varieties and sadly they became ill.’’
I noticed two fruit stalls on the market, one selling single variety apple juice with informative and attractive labels that make you want to buy. And another, an organic orchard currently selling walnuts and wet garlic who was talking to me about the number of trees they look after. I’m betting that in season their displays are stunning.
Izzy Knowles chimes in; she’s a local Councillor and volunteer director of the farmer’s market.
‘‘Part of the challenge is also why we’re successful. Moseley is like a village in a city, we’re fitting sometimes up to 55 stalls in quite a small space. People really like to come and be able to see all these different stalls in that small space.’’
Market manager Rowena Evans makes a few practical points in wishing for more space.
‘‘It’s so tight, it’s so difficult every month when we do the planning, if anything moves like a foot in the wrong direction, we’re thinking about a chance of more space. Not unless we concreted over the village green but Izzy might have words to say about that.’’
They’re discussing side roads, slip roads, closing roads, taking space from the over the road art market, even looking at the new station forecourt, but that’s divided from the market by a five minute walk,which would break the chain of stalls.
‘‘Any space that we can, we will try and fit something on it.’’
I noticed how they’re careful to place stalls with long queues on the edges of rows. That non farm hot food stalls are placed in their own row away from farm stalls.
What changes would they like to see? Radley says;
‘‘I would want it every day I would really really love to have an everyday market but I know that that would be a real big challenge. I love Mosley, I love the farmers market; it was Izzy introduced me to the market alongside David and I love volunteering, absolutely love it because we’re giving back to the community.’’
What other challenges does the market have? And markets across the UK?
Radley is clear;
‘‘Fake markets popping up, artistan markets, trying to steal the brand which is really sad because its taking our customers away from us. They’re trying to project realness. I think they should really own their own definition as opposed to stealing someone else’s definition and selling that to customers when consumers don’t really know or understand. Our big superstores have done that for many years. I would find that a real challenge and I think when it comes to Moseley farmers’ market and the Farm Retail Association and other real farmers’ markets, I always tell them keep that ownership; mention it and be proud of it.’’
How important do they feel that farmers’ markets are, given that they feed such a small % of the population
David looks thoughtful;
‘‘I think they’re very important. I was talking to Tim one of our traders today who’s who has the spit roast pig from Hay Farm.
‘‘Farmers’ markets are about protecting our farms, our rural communities but also feeding our customers and I think it’s really important that we protect this. It’s a shame the government doesn’t realize that, or understand how important it is that we’re supporting our rural areas, our farmers, our producers but we’re also looking after them because they feed us, especially here in Britain.
If you’d asked me this question 20 to 30 years ago I would have said they’re not so important but the problem is the way the world has changed, food security is so important and this government is not taking it seriously enough, both whether it be defense or whatever but particularly also in food security.
‘‘It’s even more crucial that the government recognizes this and makes a decision, rather like the red tractor to actually put a definition to farmers’ markets, real farmers’ markets and to push them in the communities to say this is where you can get proper food. Real food is not that much more expensive, some of it is just as competitive and this will help farmers and raise up our food security.’’
Iris and Ken from Woodhouse Sloe Gin are busy handing out samples of their home made sloe gin for which they collect sloes that grow near them. They joined Moseley farmers market over 10 years ago. How good is the market for them?
‘‘It has been really a success and this is our favourite farmers’ market.’’
Happy to travel from Loughborough, an hour and 15 minutes drive away, they had been selling in Leicestershire as a hobby, a few markets here and there for Christmas.
They heard of Moseley, came to see it and ‘‘we thought this is really something quite special, so we wanted to join.’’
‘‘We think the atmosphere here is very hard to beat and the team is great, it’s like you feel in really safe hands and there’s a positive vibe. Everybody seems to be happy and easy and the products are, as you know, fantastic.’’
Returning to David I want to know;
What makes Moseley an award-winning market in your opinion?
‘‘I think the name. Moseley. Moseley is just an incredible area. It’s an incredible space. It’s an incredible part of Birmingham. It has its separation, if you want to call it that, independence. And I think the farmer’s market contributes to that. It knows who it is. And I know that’s why Moseley’s Farmers Market is four times award-winning.’’
I ask David to repeat a comment; ‘‘it’s community that’s empowered it.
‘‘Yes, because it’s actually helped Moseley rediscover its sense of community.’’
Thinking back to the COVID era David tells me; ‘‘we were the backbone of the community during COVID. Absolutely. We remained open. Yes. We remained visible. We were there for our customers. We were there for our local people.’’
‘‘And it’s provided the glue to really bond the community together. It’s a meeting place now for all kinds of people. It’s amazing.’’
Moseley Village farmers market runs monthly on the last Saturday; Find more information here
Worth visiting! Absolutely.
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I love this profile! Interested to know what sort of stalls they had that you wouldn't allow on a London market?