Big Sheep farmer's market

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Big Sheep farmer's market

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Treacodactyl
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Joined: 28 Oct 2004
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Posted: Tue Nov 29, 11 2:19 pm Post subject: Big Sheep farmer's market
I'm hopefully going to pop along to The BIG Sheep Christmas Farmers' Markets on Saturday. Has anyone been to previous ones? I'm not that interested in some of the Christmas activities but it seems a useful place to check out some local producers.

sean
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Joined: 28 Oct 2004
Posts: 42219
Location: North Devon

Posted: Tue Nov 29, 11 2:23 pm Post subject:
I went to one when we first moved down here. Ali was staffing a stall at it. I've never gone back. In my experience they're absolutely heaving with punters so you won't get much if any chance to chat to producers. Might be worth a trawl for business cards so that you can get in touch at another point though. Edit: One this early might well be less busy though.

alison
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Location: North Devon

Posted: Tue Nov 29, 11 5:46 pm Post subject:
I have worked there, on a friends stall, and my own in different years. I did indeed see Sean and I also met Debbie from Hidden Valley pigs, for the first time there too.

Bugs

Joined: 28 Oct 2004
Posts: 10744

Posted: Sat Dec 03, 11 4:58 pm Post subject:

Well, I thought it was all right actually. We arrived before opening time and there were already a fair few people around but there was lots of room and we tasted and bought cheese, also picked up some bacon, beef (I think) and fish and some pretty reasonable seeming veg, and took a few cards and names to investigate later.

Disappointing bits - not as many stalls as I'd hoped for but it could be because it's the first of the season; too much cake, fudge, crafts and preserves for my liking, but that's only because I like making my own, and apparently not everything in this world is designed especially for me (yet); some of the producers let themselves down by not displaying much info about where they are from etc (even when this was positive as we found on talking to one or two of them).

We'll probably go once more at least while we look around at other shops and markets. It was certainly better than I thought it might be.

jamanda
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Joined: 22 Oct 2006
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Location: Devon

Posted: Sun Dec 04, 11 8:42 pm Post subject:
Are they doing more than one then? That's maybe why it wasn't unbearably busy. In past years they have just done one Saturday, that being closer to Christmas than now.

Treacodactyl
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Joined: 28 Oct 2004
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Posted: Sun Dec 04, 11 9:40 pm Post subject:
Looks like four this year, the others are on the 10th & 17th & Wednesday 21st December.

alison
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Location: North Devon

Posted: Sun Dec 04, 11 10:45 pm Post subject:
It is always 4 leading up to Chrsitmas. Very expensive for stalls there, which is why we don't anymore. You have to sell a hell of a lot to make it pay.

Nick

Joined: 02 Nov 2004
Posts: 34535
Location: Hereford

Posted: Mon Dec 05, 11 11:29 am Post subject:

Bugs wrote:

we tasted and bought cheese, also picked up some bacon, beef (I think) and fish and

Was this from Bob's Mystery Meat Emporium?

Treacodactyl
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Posted: Mon Dec 05, 11 11:47 am Post subject:

Nick wrote:

Bugs wrote:

we tasted and bought cheese, also picked up some bacon, beef (I think) and fish and

Was this from Bob's Mystery Meat Emporium?

Localish Aberdeen Angus, it was very nice even if it was from a different county. Their labelling was very good compared to many, some people had no labels or prices at all and others didn't have any address details. That's not really a moan but as our main aim was to track down some good local suppliers to visit direct it made our task a bit more tricky.

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