There exists a market in Kathmandu, where you sell your products for only four hours every Saturday morning from 8am to 12noon only. Each seller in the market generated a turnover around fifty thousand rupees. There is service charge of five hundred to fifteen hundred rupees imposed by the marketplace on each seller. There are 75 stall sellers on an average. The marketplace generates forty thousand rupees in form of rental service every Saturday.
Isn’t this surprising? Can you make a guess, what sort of market is it?
There is a restaurant in Panipokhari, Kathmandu namely La Sherpa. A farmer’s market is organised every Saturday in the restaurant premises. The farmer’s market prominently sellers organic foods especially fruits and vegetables, dairy, meat products in the stalls. The sellers are organic farmers of Kathmandu and nearby districts who display the products every week in La Sherpa. The buyers are 60% foreigners in Nepal and 40% local Nepalese.
So, how does this become a “celebrity” market?
Usually a housekeeper goes to vegetable vendor to fulfill the kitchen requirements. The farm staff stays in stall selling products. Unlike in the farmer’s market, film stars, industrialists, entrepreneurs, diplomats themselves bring in their shopping bags to buy organic food. The farm owners themselves sell the groceries.
The reason how the market creates such environment is through the quality of organic products and the cozy environment created by La Sherpa, that made this happen.
It is said, this farmers market generates about twenty-five lakhs every Saturday. The rental of forty thousand is collected by the stall keepers. The amount is further utilized for maintenance and advancement of the market premises and facilities offered.
The organic farm owners express that the customers visiting farmers market are retain-able. They later visit our farms and buy more fresh organic foods too.
The demand and willingness of more and more organic farmers to place a stall in La Sherpa is increasing in number. The management of the market is further experimenting new ideas to expand the scope, sellers of the farmers market.
Do you see the possibility that similar farmers market can be replicated in other major cities of Nepal as in Pokhara, Biratnagar or even Mustang?
Originally published at www.hamrokatha.com