Getting the best from market forces

It could bring a whole new meaning to market forces. Supermarkets might look as though they rule the world, but they are apparently finding it harder to compete with traditional markets and the new generation of farmers' markets. When it comes to fruit and veg, markets do it cheaper, fresher and with more choice.

According to a report from the New Economics Foundation, street markets charge up to 50 per cent less than supermarkets. Farmers' markets, while more expensive than ordinary ones, are still 11 per cent cheaper than supermarkets.

And, adds the report, markets generate more money and jobs into the local economy, so everyone benefits. A good market is more than just a place to shop, it is part of the community. Strange, isn't it, how people will rave about street markets abroad, but ignore those on their own doorsteps?

At the moment, Tesco is running a huge campaign boasting that its food is the quality of Marks & Spencer at Asda prices. Maybe. But how does it compare to Northallerton market?

We went shopping in a bid to find out.

Northallerton is a classic market town with a flourishing market, one of the best in the region. Every Wednesday and Saturday the High Street is full of stalls, including at least four fruit and veg stalls, all with great queues of people. There's also a monthly farmers' market with more stalls, such as organic vegetables.

The stalls are immediately appealing and look like something out of a children's picture book - great fat cauliflowers, huge orange carrots. What's also noticeable is the lack of wrapping and packaging, so you can see so clearly what you're buying, making it easier to choose. You can also smell them too - a tantalising scent of strawberries and tomatoes and an earthy smell of potatoes.

"Where we score over the supermarkets is on freshness," says Kevin Carrick, whose family have had a stall in the market for many years.

"We have a lot o f local produce, especially later in the year. When it comes to strawberries, for instance, we get them from Thirsk and the grower brings them straight from the field to us on the market. We're talking less than an hour from picking to our customers buying them. There's no way the supermarkets can do that."

Other fruit and veg come from the wholesale market in Leeds. "My dad John's up every morning at three o'clock to get down there," he says. "And we also get produce from Covent Garden. Anything people want, we can get it for them, no problem."

On their stall alone, they had a huge range of lettuce - cos, little gem, red chard, oak leaf, endive, rocket, lollo rosso, as well as a good selection of "exotic" fruit and veg.

And if you take the market as a whole, with all the slightly different ranges on each stall, the choice far outweighs that on offer in the supermarkets.

Another stallholder, Philip Hebdon, reckons that at this time of year, about a third of his produce is local. "By the summer it will be up to about 70 per cent and it hasn't spent a couple of days travelling the country either. We have the farmers' market here, but we buy from farmers too. We know where our stuff comes from."

Added to that, he says, is the service and the atmosphere of the market. Stallholders know many of their regulars, greet them by name. They select the produce just as people like it, often pop it straight into customers' shopping bags. Markets also save a whole load of packaging.

"It's just a nice way to shop," says Philip. "The only problem is that we're not getting so many younger people in. They haven't got the time to shop properly or many of them don't cook. They pick something ready-made from the supermarket on the way home from work.

"They don't know what they're missing."

The Tesco store in Northallerton is one of the friendliest around. We've had letters on this page praising the helpfulness and kindness of staff. But it is still a huge, impersonal shopping experience.

There is a good range of produce, especially the more interesting exotic stuff, but although Tesco recently promised to sell more local produce it hasn't yet filtered through into the system.

Supermarkets, of course, buy big and sell cheaply, but the centralisation of such an operation inevitably means that there is not much room for little and local. The striking thing going from the market into Tesco is the amount of packaging. Although supermarkets are much better than they used to be at selling loose fruit and veg, produce that travels further must be properly wrapped. It all adds to the cost and the heap of rubbish in our bins.

And, yes, we spotted one of our old favourites - the shrink-wrapped swede. Why? Since when have swedes been such tender fragile things that they need wrapping up? Or is it just so they have a nice neat surface on which to stick a price ticket?

There is absolutely nothing wrong with the fruit and veg on sale in Tesco. There is plenty to choose from and the quality is largely fine. It just doesn't have that extra freshness, that immediate appeal of so much of the produce on the market.

The Yorkshire cauliflowers on the market, for instance, were so appetising you could have eaten them raw. Those in Tesco were OK but they didn't make you really want to buy them. If people are struggling to eat their five daily portions of fruit and veg, maybe they need to be tempted a little more.

The big advantage of the supermarkets, of course, is that they are there all the time, increasingly 24 hours.

And spare a thought, in all this, for greengrocers' shops, another dying breed, struggling to compete with both superstores and markets.

There's a fruit fight on the High Street - and it's up to you who wins.

Out of our utterly random comparisons, only two items - carrots and Jersey Royals - were cheaper in Tesco. In most cases, the markets were cheaper, often considerably so.

What you are paying for in the supermarket is convenience. For however cheap the market, it's not much good if you want to shop on the way home from work, or late at night, or when it's not market day - unless you live in Darlington, which has a six-day market.

But if you want to save money and get the pick of the crop, then get yourself to market. You might even enjoy it.