Tamar Valley Food Hubs, the online not-for-profit farmers’ market based in Kelly Bray, near Callington celebrated its 10-year anniversary last week.

The Tamar Valley Food Hubs supports Tamar Valley growers and producers to expand their markets and offers weekly deliveries and collections of fresh local food and drink to customers across the Valley, Tavistock and Plymouth.

Claire Morgan from Tamar Valley Food Hubs said: ‘Back in May 2013, we completed the first day of Food Hubs deliveries, working together with 11 local producers and delivering to 14 customers – some of whom are still with us today! We now work with over 70 producers, sell more than 2,000 different products across the year, and deliver to over 200 regular customers across 17 parishes and Plymouth each week.’

Tamar Valley Food Hubs directly supports local, sustainable growers and producers with farmers setting their own prices and receiving back 85p in the pound. Claire continued: ‘The way we work keeps food miles low and supply chains short which enables our customers and community to enjoy fresh, top-quality local produce throughout the year. Developing a resilient local food network over the past decade has meant that we didn’t see the wider disruption to supply chains during the pandemic and in more recent times have been slower to see price increases and interruption to supply.’

Rachael Forster added:‘We set up 10 years ago when there wasn’t that much local produce available online.

‘We wanted to support producers to get set up online to stretch their markets geographically to reach an audience they may not be able to reach themselves and to make it easier for local people to find local produce, whilst offering a good price back to local growers and producers.

Adding, ‘For brand new growers in their first couple of years, being able to have that support with delivery and marketing of produce is really helpful for them. They can focus on the growing side and getting their business developed.’

The Food Hubs which is part of Tamar Grow Local CIC is one of 13 projects happening in 2023. These include support for local food producers with training and events, reinvigorating the rich market gardening heritage of the area under the Tamara Landscape Scheme and to help people grow their own fresh food with events and courses.

The team at Tamar Valley Food Hubs is currently planning a day of celebrations on Saturday September 16 to mark the 10-year anniversary, taking place at Harrowbarrow & Metherell Village Hall.

The event will be open to all and further information will be available on the Tamar Grow Local website and newsletters in the coming weeks.

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