Local shops under threat from price-slashing supermarkets are an all too familiar story in villages across Britain these days, but one shopper has taken it into his own hands to change the face of his village high street – offering local residents a taste of something different on their doorstep, and a farm gate for local producers.
Tim Tinsley-Wickes, from Grayshott village near Haslemere, is launching a new Grayshott Market on the third Saturday of every month, starting April 19, which is part farmers’ market, part street market.
“People believe ‘local produce’ is all about bacon and eggs but it can be so much more than this – it can be tastes from around the world,” says Tim. “Grayshott Market is about local food being turned into something even more interesting and creative.”
So with everything from Thai pastes, Nepalese wraps, Indian chapattis, South African biltong and Peruvian chutneys on offer, the event is set to be a world away from your average Sunday market.
“While all the produce will be from the local area, it will incorporate the flavours of the world,” says Tim. “We’ll have a stage area for cookery demos and lots of tastings, from pulled pork to pizza. Taste is central to the market and there will be seating areas so people can tuck into everything they see and smell.”
Tim believes it will be the birthplace of great things. “Our lovely little towns, with their butchers and greengrocers, are struggling to compete with the big chains, but the one thing we can do well – which the supermarkets cannot – is turn local produce into other, interesting cuisines.”
So just as Waterloo in London has its own street food market, Tim believes concepts like Grayshott Market could see street food coming to a town near you.
“The only way we can stop our villages dying is to change and be different,” he says.
Grayshott Market takes place on the third Saturday of every month excluding December
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