ABSTRACT
Consumer awareness regarding food production and food content is steadily growing. An alternative to the current model of global food chains is local production of food and local sales of food at farmers' markets. This chapter assesses the social and economic benefits of farmers' markets both for the farmers taking part in the markets and for the consumers purchasing the products on sale. The development of the farmers' market concept–Bondens egen Marknad–in Stockholm in 2000 followed success stories from the UK and USA. The chapter evaluates the economic and social aspects of farmers' markets in two Swedish cities, Malmo and Halmstad. It demonstrates that the environmental impact of tomatoes brought to the UK from Spain is smaller than tomatoes grown in the UK in heated greenhouses. The markets present a tremendous opportunity to act as an outlet for locally produced food products.
