Pedal - funding unsuccessful

[Bob Jefferson]

As warmer weather approaches, are the meat and fish traders going to start using refrigerated units to keep their produce fresh? Just a thought.

What PEDAL should be doing is encouraging local traders to stock organic, sustainably-produced food, not setting up in competition with them. Or they could take on a High Street shop themselves and sell locally-produced organic fruit, veg etc and be a real part of the High Street community.

[Porty]

Rereading Tommy's post, in response to my traders conversations report. I feel its more than is more than a lttle snidey. Its the way he finds things "interesting" but doesn't seem at all interested in my offer to share my findings with PEDAL. He goes on to say that PEDAL may conduct their own survey and it will be "interesting" to compare results. Implication being that I'm making it up or perhaps even worse; lying. PEDAL seem defensive and suspicious.

I have also had an eye and ear witness account of Diana Cairns, a PEDAL person, conversation in Williamsons shop today. She was quizzing the staff seeking to find out whether I had been in touch to ask about the Market and to establish what was said? Presumably she was hoping to discover that I'd made it up.

She was told that sales tend to be weaken when the market is on in the morning but recover in the afternoon and overall Williamsons do support it.

To me this behaviour does not indicate an organisation that is open or geunine about inviting fact based debate.(there's quite a few of those in Porty). They seem more intent on denigrating and/or mailgning anyone who dares to challenge the commercial sense of their project (s).

[wangi]

[Porty]

[rmolehusband]

[Tommy Black]

[Tommy Black]

Bob, I think you’re right the whole fish thing is a bit complex. Am fairly sure Pollock, and any unpopular fish, will be more sustainable. Until of course they become popular …

There is also the question of how and where the fish is caught - in protected fisheries? Using beam trawling? This has huge impact on the sea floor habitat and results in loads of by-catch - dead stuff thrown back in. That’s where the MCS certification can come in handy.

There’s also the question of where it was flown in from (if anywhere). For example, Youngs prawns (sold in supermarket shelves across the country) used to be harvested, cooked, peeled, packaged and frozen in Fraserburgh. But due to messed up global economics they are now transported to China for the processing side of things (the factory in Fraserburgh closed down) then back here to our supermarket shelves. Cos it’s cheaper to do that.

Organic fish – yes only farmed can be organic. Better than un-organic farmed. The feed, shit and pesticides from non-organic farmed salmon have big impacts on the surrounding marine environment, and the over-crowding has huge impact on spread of disease (requiring yet more pesticides) and animal welfare.

Like your ideas for how PEDAL could start doing things ref. High Street. They were suggested by others in the past and are on the PEDAL to do list. God knows if we’ll ever find the time to do them, I for one am running out of energy having spent massive amounts of voluntary (as well as some paid) time on PEDAL projects over the past five years…

[Porty]

[Grunk]

This is all very exciting, I'm going to get some popcorn...

I think one thing was missing from your survey/questions though, which was:

Since the market has started, has there been an overall increase or decrease in takings?

I'm thinking that there might be the possibility that market encourages people out to Porty on the first day of the month, but may also have a knock on effect that encourages people to shop locally when the market isn't on. The flip side is that it is only the people who shop locally who frequent the market. Or maybe it's somewhere in between.

It is probably a hard question to answer, in a time economic turmoil when people will generally be drifting to the cheaper (supermarket) alternatives anyway.

[Puerto bella]

I went to the first market but haven't been back since. Can't really say why, it hasn't been a conscious decision. Now that I think about it, it seemed a nice idea but wasn't quite what I thought it would be and seemed quite pricey for what it was. Like most people I shop locally and in supermarkets including the daily trip to Scotmad. They need some local competition to get their act together or let another operator do a better job like the Leith one.

[Porty]

[Porty]

Met with Tommy and must publically apologise. I don't think I could have been more wrong with my interpretation of his post.

[Tommy Black]

Thanks Porty.

Grunk, I'm not sure that anything other than a detailed, independent economic impact assessment (or whatever it's called) could answer your questions. Maybe this is something PEDAL should look to do at some point, but of course it all costs ...

Puerta Bella, yes I'd admit the first market didn't quite hit the spot, with a couple stalls selling 'tat' and not enough food stalls. Hopefully things have improved. A full list of traders for each month can be found here - http://pedal-porty.org.uk/food/portobel ... ic-market/

At the foot of that page is a wee piece put together by our Food Worker, Peter Upton, that tries to explain why organic food often costs a bit more than conventionally produced stuff.