New year brings its supply of calendars: from the feed and seed merchants, the machinery and hardware store, the garage and Made in Cumbria.
Trade calendars are a useful means of advertising, but they are also a gesture of goodwill between people and businesses whose livelihoods are closely dependent upon each other and on the seasons and land.
This years' MIC calendar is packed with festivals, shows and farmers' markets, and since like buses, food events tend to come all at once, you need to plan ahead when deciding which ones to attend. There is plenty to think about. Will family be available to help, as it probably will not pay to hire staff to cover extra events?
Will the livestock be ready to sell, or will you be lambing/calving/harvesting, at home and too busy to attend? Do events complement one another enabling you to make the best use of a carcass or the Aga? You might expect to sell roasting joints at one market, but burgers at a show the next day, or cakes at one event and preserves at another. Who else will be there, and will there be enough custom to service all the stalls selling the same type of product as you?
Cost is another major consideration, as a stand at a big show can be expensive and takings low, as customers come to browse and to taste, not to buy bags of shopping to carry round all day. A food creche helps here but you may still want to use an event as an opportunity for marketing and publicity, rather than sales.
But when all is said and done, the weather will have the last say - sunshine and crowds, and you might make a profit, but wellies and a tractor to tow you and your waterlogged wares off the field, and it probably will not have been worth the effort. Strange that the sun is always shining on the calendars!
Jane Merritt
Stallholder on Kendal Farmers' Market
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