Guelph Organic Conference’s 30-year promotion of local, organic foods echoed by Greenbelt Farmers’ Market Network

The Guelph Organic Conference has long been a meeting place for organic farmers and the customers that support them. It’s a forum for networking and sharing information and ideas. Scores of farmers’ markets in Ontario’s Greenbelt – some long established, many newly renovated and others freshly hatched – provide a chance for other communities to do the same.

The Greenbelt Farmers’ Market Network (GFMN) will help the Conference mark its 30th anniversary in January 2011 with a Networking Room in which market managers can share their stories and ideas. The GFMN introduced the hugely successful concept at last January’s event. They will have lots of new information to share in 2011, including the results of an online Shoppers Survey on what motivates people to buck the supermarket trends of the past. More than three hundred market shoppers logged on to complete the survey.

Anne Freeman of the GFMN and Hélène St. Jacques of Toronto-based INFORMA Market Research will host the room to share the results, some of which are highlighted in the following sneak preview.

Shoppers say that:

they love their markets! Two thirds shop weekly rain or shine, for fresh, tasty and locally grown produce, baked goods, meat and cheese.