Tonbridge Courier Farmers' Market

By Oliver Frankham

THE town’s independent food producers have saluted the incredible success of its farmers’ market, which has become the biggest in Kent in just eight months.

The market, which launched in June, welcomed 65 stall holders and an impressive number of shoppers to Sovereign Way in Tonbridge on Sunday despite snow flurries and sub-zero temperatures.

The driving force behind the monthly market, manager Steve Wood, said hundreds of people had thanked him for making the effort to improve shopping in Tonbridge.

The 51-year-old from Pembury, who runs his own chilli sauce-making company, said: “A lot of people aren’t that keen on Tonbridge – they don’t think it’s a particularly nice place – but it has everything going for it.

A real need

“So many people have come up to me and said ‘This is the best thing that has ever happened to Tonbridge, we need this’.”

Mr Wood said the market had succeeded where predecessors had failed through “sheer hard work” and the enormous variety of goods on offer.

“We’ve got room for about another ten stalls, so we are nearing capacity,” he said.

“The biggest farmers’ market in the country is in Winchester, with 100 regular stalls, but not many come close to that and we are the biggest in Kent now.”

Bank Street resident Kathie Foster-Smith, who produces jams and chutneys under the name Great Preservations, said the event’s rapid growth had been a big boost for companies like hers.

“It’s absolutely massive now,” she said.

“It’s like a lovely mini food festival and, when the weather’s good, it’s phenomenal. But, even when it’s raining and cold people still turn out and we are all getting regular customers from it.”

Hadlow-based businessman Harvey Guntrip was equally full of praise for Mr Wood’s enterprise, which has ignited his firewood delivery company Bertie’s Wood Fuel.

Mr Guntrip, of Court Lane, said: “Tonbridge is becoming a self-generating market. A lot of people who come here are so impressed they are telling their friends, and that is the best form of advertising.

“Steve runs it very well, and well-run markets will always generate business for the traders. Most of our marketing is done through farmers’ markets and we always do fantastically here.

“We’ve been here since June and it has grown by 50 per cent since then.”

The market comes to the Sovereign Way long stay car park on the second Sunday morning of every month.

Jane Apps, owner of Hever-based vegetarian food company The Fat Carrot, said: “The footfall here is great.”

Cobnut grower Alexander Hunt, of Potash Farm in St Mary’s Platt, added: “We were one of the first stalls here and, like all these things, we had a very quiet start. But today there are more than 60 stalls and, for a February day, I have had a very satisfactory flow of business.”