The motivation

One thing is clear: farmers’ markets are not only a hobby, but a passion to me. I Iove to encourage people to visit markets. Markets have so much to offer: a large variety of produce, learning from the traders a lot about the produce and what to do with them, the buzz making it easy to have conversations with friends and strangers alike and a great place to have a coffee or a snack with some friends and enjoy the day. In short: markets are places where joy of life becomes real.

Talking to friends, colleagues and traders I discovered that there is a need to show rediscover the beauty of markets. This is how I started this blog, which covers markets I visited across several continents.

The starting point

Then came along Sascha Foerster from Bonn.digital, the company Johannes Mirus and him are running. Bonn.digital is doing social media consulting, community management and digital events. Sascha and I got to know each other through various social media and decided to meet over a coffee and chat a bit. Well the chat went well, and Sascha bought forward his idea with a charming smile: “Why shouldn’t we set up together a site, where Bonn people and visitors alike can discover the goodness of the Bonn markets?” He caught me a little off guard, even though the idea seemed very logical: if I wanted to make people go more often to the markets in Bonn, I had to do something about it.

One night of sleep and the deal was done. Sascha set up the infrastructure aka. website and I started to key in the first traders with their offering, contacts and trading hours on the market. I tried to contact some market managers to get the information on the stall a bit faster, but apparently without enough persistence. So I had to visit all 11 markets of the city, some of them for the first time, a pleasant discovery for me as well. To my delight this lead to many conversations with traders and also the discovery of many good food products.

Collecting the content

Contacting in person every stall is a cumbersome way of collecting all the data, especially since this task has to be done next to the “real” job in the free time. And not all traders choose to be on the market on days convenient for casual collection of details. But we are getting there. The good thing is not to work alone, Sascha always comes up with good ideas, improvements on the site, which keeps me going.

The whole job made me become critical of all my pictures I took of the stalls and their offerings. A good starting point to get more serious about photography. As such building up the site becomes a great learning experience.

Another good side of all these efforts is that I get to know the producers and traders individually. As I better ask them if they want to be published in our directory, there is always a chat beyond this topic, I get much deeper insights on how markets work. Great. So far we have more than 70 stalls with photos, contact etc. Probably there are 20 or so to go.

So what is it about?

Well, first and foremost a directory of all stalls at the 11 markets in the city of Bonn to help finding the right produce at the right time at the right location. So for each stall there is information :

• location incl. map
• trading hours
• contacts incl. web and social media presence
• some photos, a few from the traders themselves
• possibility to comment on individual stalls

And now?

Setting up and optimizing Bonn.market is one thing. Promoting it the other. So far Twitter has worked, but this is not enough. Let’s see what consumers and traders think about the site and improve it continuously. To make it easier for expatriates living in Bonn, there is already a possibility to get it translated on the fly via Google translate (check at the bottom of the page).

We are just at the beginning to get people more excited about farmers’ markets. A goal worth being persistent. let’s try to make it happen. I am very curious about the journey and about the ideas and activities coming along.

A little link list:

• The site we are talking about: Bonn.market
• The guys supporting and sponsoring it: Bonn.digital
• Sascha Foerster the guy who ignited it is on Twitter, Facebook and here as well
• The map we incorporated is from wo-ist-markt.de (where is market day) based on growing open data from German municipalities
• My posts on markets in Bonn
• A post which describes my passion for markets on Marjorie R. Williams blog

The post Helping people discover the markets in Bonn appeared first on Food & Farmers' Markets.

This market does not have a good reputation but is still successful – for some vendors.

Location

This outdoor market is right in the city centre of Bonn – former capital of Germany and city of Ludwig van Beethoven. This is the main shopping area, thousands and thousands of people are walking by everyday.

Those who make the money – they are at the right location

Some fruit and vegetable vendors benefit heavily from the many shoppers. How so? Well, they are located along the pedestrian “highway” which is the sort of North to South trajectory across the city centre. Nobody can escape these vendors calling out their produce and prices like on an oriental bazaar. The constant flow of pedestrians allows them not to rely on the loyalty of customers. Instead they focus on deals and focus on produce in high demand: it is now the season of asparagus (white & green) and strawberries. With these dominant colours the stalls look like flags.

This section of the market is the one which contributes to it’s bad reputation. Often you will hear complaints that when unpacking the merchandise at home, there will be a couple of “bad apples” in the bag. There are many stories about its origins. Some say it was mainly one stall owner responsible for the situation, who had even to give back his license, some say it is still valid. I would not wonder if the focus on price is the main reason. As a result the vendors who mainly get their merchandise at the wholesale market in nearby Cologne, cannot afford to buy the best quality. So bargain rules and finds its demand.

Some time ago a vendor at the “highway” started to prepare bags with mixed fruit, e.g. a pineapple, a few oranges, kiwis etc. and to sell them for 4€ each. Very practical when you are in a hurry and have to save money. Therefore quite a lot of his customers are students who then purchase their weekly stock in one go. He does this mainly in off-peak times when he has some time to prepare the bags. I think it is a nice marketing idea and service, it reminds me of farmers who deliver produce boxes to subscribers’ doorsteps.

The street food stalls

Some food carts benefit from the same location as well. Amongst them is the obligatory and popular bratwurst and currywurst one. Some years ago the vendors changed as the licenses were renewed. I have my doubts on how the process was managed, for sure it did not improve the quality of the offering. Still it is hard to resist a brat.

A bit uncommon is the wine stall, where you can share a glass or two. Potato pan cakes, fruit juices, stews are available for a quick lunch. Employees of the nearby offices and shops take advantage of it. So no worries to leave the spot hungry.

So where is the quality?

Some stall are worth being visited regularly. They are not so easy to discover and they do not present themselves as something special – I will come to the exception a bit later.

Two stalls focus on products from specific culinary regions: the Swabian and the Alpine one. Unfortunately both are not everyday on the market. The Swabian cuisine of Germany’s South West is a hearty one, capable of doing nice stuff out of poor peoples’ produce as the region once was. The “Maultaschen” – similar to ravioli – are certainly one of the better known products as well as Spätzle.

From the Alpine region, in this case Vorarlberg (Austria) and South-Tirol (Italy), another vendor offers a large variety of smoked hams, sausages and mountain cheeses as wells as bread. Basically everything which can be stored for a week or more. I am a particular fan of the vendor’s butter, very smooth and refined in taste. All the products are being sourced from traders with direct links to small producers, who are capable of ensuring a high product quality. The philosophy of the vendor is that only small producers can ascertain this culinary level.

A stall with vinegars, oils and spirits displays his merchandise very nicely: little bottles marked with handwriting, larger glass containers with oil to fill smaller ones. Only own branding, everything looks handmade and cute. First I thought it could be a franchise as the stall label looked professional, but the owner sources his merchandise from different small producers of the larger region, some of them quite experimental and interesting. Apparently the stall is also popular by those look for a birthday gift – like me.

My highlight – an innovative stall: CookIt

Since a couple years CookIt is on the market with a small dark green cart different in appearance to all the other ones and much nicer or more modern – see photo gallery above. The two brothers and a companion have started the idea to propose simple recipes and pack only the ingredients needed to cook it. The produce are mainly regional and truely fresh. The price of the ingredients is by portion for one person and depends on the needed ingredients for the recipe. Asking the owners how big the portions are, they answer that it fits their appetite – they are not the thinnest bunch.

I chose a chard-bacon-pasta with ricotta. All the ingredients were included, I needed only to add olive oil, salt & pepper from my pantry. Even though the recipe was neither very sophisticated nor complicated, the fresh ingredients made it a great meal.

As they started the brothers thought that the clientele would be mainly a younger crowd. But apparently the offer is welcomed by retirees as well, who do not want to store too much at home to reduce waste. And with one time cooking they have enough for two days.

Besides having a created a unique offer, CookIt is also active on social media where they present their newest recipes. For those who are not on Facebook, they have a web presence as well. When we talked a bit about the Bonn market and the lack of social media presence they believe that it rather depends on the vendors and their affinity to modern stuff. Themselves they see it as a tool to stay in contact with their clientele, to announce new recipes and make customers consequently come back to their stall. It certainly helps to avoid unnecessary trips when the recipes on offer aren’t the right ones.

The praise of the Cookit stall may sound like paid sponsorship – but I just like their idea and their product. For your experiences: tweet me.

Managing the market

The market is not anymore managed by the city of Bonn, but by Marktgilde, a professional market management company working across Germany. I heard several times that they are trying to improve the quality of the market, but seem to have hard times to do so. One quality fruit and vegetable vendor who is at the nearby Bad Godesberg market, refused their offer to join this high foot fall location. Well, let’s hope for the better.

All in all: a few stalls are interesting, some are fine for a bargain, but it is no jewel of the city of Bonn.

A little link list

• A post with many pictures from olive oil and sea salt
• The web presence of the Swabian stall
• CookIt: web presence & Facebook
• The oil, vinegar & spirit stall web presence
• My other posts on markets in Bonn: the organic one and the one in Bad Godesberg

The post Location, location – Main market in Bonn / Germany appeared first on Food & Farmers' Markets.