Locally grown organic veg boxes now available in Cowbridge.
The Riverside Market Garden is a small scale commercial horticulture operation set up two years ago by RCMA – the social enterprise that runs the well known farmers markets in Riverside and other parts of Cardiff, as a way to meet the increasing demand for local food in Wales, and to contribute to a sustainable local economy

The growing is all done on part of a five-acre field which the group rent from the Coed Hills Rural Artspace based at the village of St. Hilary near Cowbridge.

Last year the Market Garden grew enough vegetables to supply weekly vegetable boxes to more than twenty Cardiff families, and also delivered regularly to several pubs and restaurants in the city which see using fresh local produce as a way to provide the best possible food to their customers, and also a selling point to appeal to people who want to know where their food as come from and want to buy locally as much as possible to support the local economy and to help preserve the planet.

Weekly veg boxes now be able to collect from  The Little Shop of Calm in Cowbridge, and it is hoped that as word gets around more people will want to get their weekly vegetables this way!

Riverside Market Garden is a cooperative which is owned by local people, including some of its customers. Anyone can buy shares, and this money is then used to purchase needed supplies and equipment for the project. Shareholders are welcomed at the project itself for regular celebrations and work parties, and receive a special discount off the price of their regular veg box.

With the contraction of the economy, and rising concerns about the health and environment implications of the food choices we make, more and more people want to buy local . The Market Garden just acquired organic certification from the Soil Association, so customers can be even more sure that everything bought from them is produced in the healthiest possible way for customers and for the environment.

The Riverside Market Garden project is supported in this pilot phase by a grant from Welsh Governments Rural Development Fund, which will pay for the project to share what it has learned about small scale food production and marketing with people who want to achieve similar results all over Wales.

FOR MORE INFORMATION CONTACT PETER BROOKS (PROJECT MANAGER)
0789 039 4275 or petebrooks@waitrose.com

www.riversidemarketgarden.co.uk

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