Above: The Willunga Farmers Market has adapted to the COVID restrictions and is going strong – providing both delicious regional produce, supporting local business and offering a welcoming community spirit.
Farmers Market: adapting to change Story by Kate Le Gallez. Photograph by Heidi Lewis.
On 21 March 2020, uncertainty was in the air. We were six days into a declared public health emergency in South Australia. Toilet paper was now a precious resource, our conversations were newly littered with the phrase ‘social distancing’ and I was wondering whether to make my weekly trip to the Willunga Farmers Market (WFM). Habit – and the ability to shop in the fresh air – won out, with two concessions. First, I was alone, because two young children will touch everything, pandemic or not. Secondly, I was armed with hand sanitiser, readily accessible for frequent dousings. For six days, Jenni Mitton, General Manager of WFM, and her management team wondered how many people would make the same decision I did. Would people still come? ‘It was a bit of a scary time,’ Jenni recalls. But she believed in the importance of continuing to offer access to the fresh, local produce the market is renowned for – for the benefit of both the traders, whose livelihoods were at stake, and shoppers. Government directives aside, the market was and is an essential service. And that meant change needed to happen, and quickly. But not too much change: ‘neither our customers or our stallholders are fans of change,’ laughs Jenni. The existing site was a major problem, however. ‘We couldn’t social distance in the space we were in,’ she explains. The solution was to split the market, with all fresh 40
fruit and vegetable stalls relocating across the road to the Willunga Recreation Park grounds. The WFM board signed it off mid-week and the news went out via newsletter and social media: the market is on. Same, same but different. Somehow I missed all of that, so when I made my way into the market via my usual route down the side of the Fleurieu Milk truck, the change hit me like the sting of hand sanitiser in a paper cut. In Town Square where stalls once stood awning to awning, space had appeared. Slightly discombobulated, I was lining up to buy my milk (three of the dark blue, thanks) when a man in a fluoro vest approached me. Fresh fruit and veg are over the road, he said. This man – a newly-recruited volunteer – and others like him, would become a new fixture of the market experience. Their fluro-clad presence at the entry points to the market wielding hand sanitiser and friendly but firm reminders to stand two arm lengths apart help reinforce the new norms. After the re-siting, the volunteers are the reason people continue to feel safe shopping at the market, says Jenni. Another new fixture is the availability of cashless payment. ‘While everyone else was out hoarding toilet paper, I was at Officeworks, hoarding Square Readers and driving to producers’ farms and setting them up, showing them how to use it,’ says Jenni. The more spaced-out market, volunteers and cashless payment are here to stay while social distancing guidelines remain in place. So too the WFM members-only online order service, which is picked and packed by volunteers. For creatures of habit like me, it’s been a lot of change but it’s also shown the adaptability and resilience of the market community. ‘I’m really proud of the community for accepting that we had to make huge changes, the biggest changes that we’ve ever had to make in 18 years,’ says Jenni. And she’s especially grateful to the volunteers who ‘just keep showing up. They just keep helping.’ 2020 has asked a lot of us so far and may well continue to do so. But so long as the Saturday mornings keep coming, so too will the Willunga Farmers Market.
