FARMERS MARKET CELEBRATES 20th BIRTHDAY

Riverside Farmers¹ Market is celebrating its 20th birthday this weekend

Sunday 21 October 2018.

Back in 1998, the Market started with a group of traders setting up their

stalls in Riverside¹s Despenser Gardens park once a month. It was soon clear

that there was a growing interest in the provenance of food, and customers

wanted to be able to buy delicious locally produced food more regularly, so

before long the Market became weekly and moved to its current location

opposite the then newly-built Millennium Stadium every Sunday morning.

As Riverside Market grew, Riverside Real Food - the social enterprise which

was set up to manage the market - set up a sister farmers¹ market in Roath

which recently celebrated its tenth anniversary, and a Friday market in

Rhiwbina. In recent years, it has run several pop-up markets and street-food

festivals in locations such as the Heath Hospital, St Fagans Museum and

Cardiff¹s universities, alongside lots of local food events to promote local

food and healthy eating in schools and communities. All of which has meant

that more people Cardiff have been able meet producers and realise the taste

and health and environmental benefits of buying local, and at the same time

local farmers and other food producers have been helped to survive and

prosper.