Farmers' Market in Headington
Headington Action organizes a monthly farmers’ market, usually on the fourth Friday of each month (8am–12.30pm) at the top end of Kennett Road.
Full details on the market website:
www.headingtonmarket.net
Stalls include meat, apples and apple juice, honey, fruit and vegetables, cheese and dairy products, bread, and fish. The first market was held in September 2007.
It is now several years since Headington lost its last greengrocer, and several more since it lost its last butcher. While a monthly farmers’ market is no substitute for such facilities, we hope with this initiative to make it a little more attractive to shop in Headington, and to reduce, if only slightly, the need for Headington residents to queue in supermarkets for food produced far away.
Headington Action has had invaluable assistance from Robert Eadle, a farmer at Beckley, in identifying suppliers who are willing and able to sell at our market. (If you pick your own fruit at Rectory Farm, look for Robert’s pork products at the butcher’s shop there, and if you enjoy a pint of Brakspear at the Abingdon Arms in Beckley, try his sausages). We are particularly pleased that he has been able to identify a supplier of fresh fish.
Normal farmers’ market criteria apply to the suppliers – nobody can sell bought-in produce, and each seller must be involved in the production. However, since it is hard to get a full range of vegetables from a single local supplier all year round, our vegetable stall will contain products bought in directly from other farmers. It will be clearly labelled to distinguish it from the stallholder's own produce. Our policy is always to give preference to local suppliers, but to make as wide a choice as possible available to shoppers. If a product is not available from a local supplier, and we can find somebody from further away who can supply it, we will do so.
Oxford Mail, 18 September 2007: "Residents back market scheme"