Practice English Listening B1+ Exercises – A farmers’ market

A

Whereas a normal market sells a lot of products, a farmers’ market sells locally produced food directly to the customers.

B

1 750   2 month   3 producer   4 lorries   5 twice   6 90

7 local   8 family   9 8,000   10 cows

A farmers’ market

Hi, I’m Louise. Today I’m at a farmers’ market in Winchester, in the south of England.

There are now over seven hundred and fifty markets in Britain. Unlike normal shops, these markets move from place to place. They set up in each location at regular intervals. Some are weekly, some are fortnightly, and some are monthly.

At farmers’ markets, producers can sell directly to customers. In an age of globalization and internet retailing, some people want to return to a simpler way of shopping. They like to touch and taste what they’re buying. And, most importantly, they want to know where it comes from.

When you shop in the supermarket, it isn’t always easy to find out who produces your meat, picks your fruit, or grows your vegetables. But at farmers’ markets, customers buy directly from the producer, who can tell them all about the goods they sell.

Supermarkets also have a long supply chain. The food often has to travel from the producer to a distributor and a wholesaler before it reaches the supermarket shelf. This means food can often spend days in lorries and warehouses.

But at farmers’ markets, there’s no supply chain. It comes directly from the farm to the market. Producers sell it as soon as it’s ready, so it’s always fresh, organic, and tasty.

Winchester Market is the largest regular farmers’ market in the UK. It takes place twice a month, and it has around ninety stalls selling all kinds of food and drink. Bakers sell freshly baked bread and cakes; farmers sell meat, vegetables, and fruit; and beekeepers sell honey. There are lots of different stalls, and they sell everything from homemade meat pies to jams and sauces made from locally sourced ingredients.

The best part is that all this food comes from the local area. Winchester is in the county of Hampshire. All the businesses that have stalls at Hampshire farmers’ markets must be based in the county or within fifteen kilometres of its borders. This is good news for customers. There’s no middle-man, like a shop or a supermarket, so customers can find out anything they want to know about the product they’re buying. It’s also good for the local economy. The money stays in the area, and as these local businesses grow, they employ more local people.

This is Lyburn Farmhouse Cheesemakers. It’s an excellent example of a local business which has benefited from these markets. They make all their produce in Salisbury, less than thirty miles away from here. Lyburn Farm is a family-run business. They milk their own cows and they use this milk to make their own cheese. Every morning the farm’s cheesemakers collect the milk and separate it into curds and whey. When the curd is ready, they drain it, squeeze it, and put it into moulds. The next day they package the cheese and store it on the farm until it matures. At any one time, they have eight thousand cheeses maturing!

When the farm’s cheese is ready, these employees bring it to markets like this, where they sell it directly to the customer. So this cheese comes straight from the farm. That’s why it tastes so good! Everything about Lyburn Cheese is local. The employees work locally, the customers buy locally – even the cows are local! This is why people come to farmers’ markets. They want to support local producers and want to buy local produce. Here you know exactly what you’re buying and where it’s from. So more and more people are trying to use the supermarket less and buy fresh, locally produced food instead.