To ensure the best selection you’ve got to arrive early at the Lyttelton farmers’ market on Saturday mornings.

After less than two hours, breadmakers are selling their last handful of specialty loaves and shutting the van door. Other stallholders are also running out of popular lines. There’s a steady stream of people milling around the stalls, many regulars.

There’s even entertainment with pupils from the local school, where the market is sited, getting a cheer for performing a haka. Farmers’ markets are multiplying throughout the country and it seems they are as much a hit with consumers as they are with small-time producers.

Vegetable and herb seller Amy Caddie says her family business only sells direct to the public – at Lyttelton and at the big Riccarton Rotary market every Sunday in Christchurch.

Because they are only small producers, the central market system they had used for years “had gone away from dealing with people like us”.

Big buyers like supermarkets wanted the same product supplied 52 weeks of the year, something they weren’t able to deliver. Their business, in the Horotane Valley in Christchurch, over the hill from Lyttelton, produces tomatoes and salad herb plants. It also concentrates on products that aren’t available in supermarkets such as Lebanese cucumber and hairy gourd – aimed at the Asian market.

Leeston apiarist Barry Sheehan is another who only sells his honey direct to the public. By selling his manuka, rata and blackcurrant honeys in bigger family-sized containers he can put out a reasonably priced product. He reckons its 40% cheaper than what you can buy in the shops. “It’s a one-on-one product. It’s nice to deal with the public.”

Annie Ennor, Staveley, Mid Canterbury, says she struggles to keep up with demand for her free-range eggs. “People come back saying the eggs are wonderful. I say I’ll tell the girls at home so they keep laying.”

New markets like Lyttelton are now sprouting up throughout the country. Nationally there are about 12 farmers’ markets from Kerikeri to Invercargill, a figure expected to double in the next year. While markets are predominantly located in rural provincial regions, two have recently started in Christchurch and there is a push to set up markets in more towns and in Wellington and Auckland.

Organisers of New Zealand’s two best-established farmers’ markets – in Marlborough and Hawke’s Bay which have both been operating for about five years – have combined forces to set up a national association to assist other regions set up their own markets.

Chris Fortune, a chef who began the Marlborough market, says the biggest plus is making sure that the farmers’ market is brand-protected. The primary producer has to be the stallholder selling the product to ensure there is no middlemen or on-selling of goods.

“So when the public buy the product they are talking directly to the grower.” It also has to be produce from the local region. “So you can’t sell pineapples in Christchurch.” The produce also has to be edible, with a few exceptions such as flowers, so there are no arts and crafts-type products.

Big companies and supermarkets that buy in bulk have squeezed out many growers and farmers’ markets create another outlet for them, Fortune says.

Visitors to the Marlborough market can chose from wild game, country breads, olive oil, wine, cheese, fruits and vegetables and preserves and pickles. Stall numbers can rise from 30 to 45 in summer once pipfruit and stonefruit comes in season.

“It is the first building block of sustainability within a community. It can be used by backyard growers, someone who enjoys growing vegetables, or has an excess of potatoes they can take to the market and sell. It also suits bigger, more commercially orientated growers.”

The philosophy of farmers’ markets is supporting local producers and selling direct to the public with no middleman.

It also eliminates food miles – how far food travels to get to the table. “It’s about talking to the producer and finding out whether it’s spray-free or organic, how it’s been grown and how best to cook it.”

A survey of consumers and stallholders commissioned last year by the Marlborough farmers’ market committee showed that the average consumer spends $15 to $20 at the market. This represents an economic impact to the region over the last four years of around $2 million, and it stays in the local economy. The market committee hope to double this within the next two years.

Asked why locals from the Marlborough region shop at the market, 86% say the quality, price and freshness of produce at the market attracted them.

On average, nearly 1000 people visit the market each week during its season of November to April.

New Zealand Farmers’ Markets Association (NZFMA) interim chairman Ian Thomas says that “as well as the obvious benefits of buying fresh produce from your local grower, markets have proved to be excellent testing grounds and incubators for food producers.”

He cites five businesses that began life in the Hawke’s Bay market going on to export. At the end of last year NZFMA held a series of workshops around the country, with support from New Zealand Trade and Enterprise.

Australian Farmers’ Market Association chairwoman Jane Adams was a keynote speaker at the workshops aimed at educating people in how to run a successful farmers’ market, and to encourage more of th