I suppose I ought to mention something about the monthly Vegan market we started at the Cornhill Square in January. Unfortunately for all concerned we never managed to attract enough customers to make the market viable, and when a market gets in a spiral of this nature, with stall numbers reducing month by month it becomes a disappointing experience so less shoppers come etc.

There are a number of possible reasons why the market didn’t take off as we might have hoped. The nearest car park to that part of town, the London Road multi storey, is closed on Sundays, which is unhelpful; Saturday in Stroud is so awesome that nearly everyone looking for the market shopping vibe is in town, meaning they are less likely to come in again on Sunday; there aren’t enough vegans to form a decent regular customer base; our advertising wasn’t effective enough; and a few others no doubt.

Whatever the reason(s), we had no option but to call a halt. We are, however, holding a Vegan Christmas Market on Sunday December 22nd. This will make for a busy week at the Cornhill running up to Christmas as we’ll have our Christmas gift markets, Wednesday, Thursday and Friday (18,19,20 Dec), Farmers Market Saturday 21st, Vegan Christmas Market Sunday 22nd plus a final farmers’ market for collection of orders on Christmas Eve (Tuesday)!

We started the Vegan event initially as a response to hearing that Saturdays at the farmers’ market is challenging for some of them, with a lot of animal products on sale