Rip Off Britain: Farmers Markets

Ain't capitalism great?

Farmers Markets appear to be selling conventionally produced food, from the regular wholesale chain, at inflated prices.

Consider, for example, Isle of Wight Tomatoes, one of the most established stallholders at London’s numerous farmers’ markets. It looks like a small, traditional enterprise and claims to sell its own homegrown produce. Think again. Its tomatoes, aubergines and cucumbers are bought from a separate company, Wight Salads, the bulk of whose £60m turnover comes from supplying supermarket chains.

Worse, as far as many green consumers may be concerned, many of the tomatoes are actually experimental genetic crossbreeds that Wight Salads is engineering to try to find the “next best thing” for the supermarkets. In short, these tomatoes are a far cry from traditional British produce homegrown in a smallholding.

“They [Wight Salads] crossbreed to increase the flavour a little, increase the colour, increase the yield,” explained Jeff MacDonald, a director of Isle of Wight Tomatoes, the company that sells them on farmers’ market stalls. “That trial produce comes to farmers’ markets.”

It’s a very good business. Nonorganic cherry tomatoes bought from Isle of Wight Tomatoes and weighing 455g (16oz) fetch £3.50 at the Pimlico farmers’ market stall. At Tesco you can pick up the equivalent weight of organic cherry tomatoes for £1.78. Ordinary tomatoes like the ones The Sunday Times bought from the market cost even less and the equivalent weight can be bought at Tesco for £1.26.

Thank the Lord there's someone out there competing with the supermarkets, eh? Without that constraint upon their behaviour, why, they might start to rip people off!