Farmers find old and new ways to market

Shopping at farmers' markets, traveling shops and organic grocery e-shops is catching on as an alternative to supermarkets, with consumer demand for fresh, organic produce on the rise, industry players say.

Traditional traveling stores, mainly selling meat, fruit and vegetables, formerly functioned mostly in remote villages; however, new versions of these are emerging in Prague, said Martin Franc, an academic from the Masaryk Institute and the Czech Academy of Sciences.

While rural residents are increasingly flocking to commercial supermarkets, city dwellers have a growing affinity for goods sold more directly from producers.

"It is actually a different form of the traveling shop. The small producers go to farmers' markets with some sort of a vehicle and sell from their vehicle," Franc said.

Traveling baker René Medikus, who has two traveling shops and four retail stores, said his experience running a traditional retail shop front prompted him to head out on the road, where he could be free from overheads like rent and bills, and also not have to worry about real estate contracts and invoices.

"Mobile shops are not a bad thing, but it is extremely tough to find people willing to drive the vehicle since they are paid by the revenues and work 12-hour shifts," he said. "You have to do it because you like it; in business, to keep it alive, you must work hard. If I did not believe it had a future, I would not have stuck with it."

While independent stores enjoy some freedoms as independent traders, they are still influenced by government policy, Medikus said.

"If retail prices go up and the cost of living goes up, then I will have to raise my prices too, and then we will see if the customers will show up," he said.

However, Medikus said his clients are willing to pay extra to ensure quality.

"Some compare our prices with supermarkets and then choose us, but essentially our client is somebody who is willing to pay for the quality," he said. "The future is all about us sticking to the quality, quality and again quality."  

The demand for fresh, organic produce is growing stronger, creating more avenues for independent farmers to sell their wares to the public, said Filip Říha, co-owner of organic e-store Freshbedynky.

Freshbedynky buys fresh fruit and produce from more than 20 Czech and foreign farmers and delivers these to customers through an e-store order point and a variety of ecological home delivery or pickup options. The company, which started up two years ago, was founded to fill the void for fresh produce in the Czech Republic, Říha said.

"There's a huge demand here for fresh, quality supplies, particularly in the expat community, and it's growing," he said.

Ninety-nine percent of Freshbedynky's customers are from Prague, while 10 percent of these are expats. Half of the customers come into the warehouse to pick up their orders, and around 40 percent have their items delivered on a weekly basis, with the rest using alternative delivery options, like last-minute ordering or couriers for deliveries outside of the capital, Říha said.

The key differences between alternative grocery stores and supermarkets are quality and comfort, Říha said.

"We sell real food that is really tasty. We don't sacrifice quality even at the cost of limited availability - that means that if there's no high-quality lettuce this week, we don't sell any. We always have something else to offer instead. And we bring it all to people's doorstep with a smile," Říha said.

"For us, the most important thing is to work with pleasure, to be a nice, happy team and to guarantee products that are fresh, grown without pesticides and good quality."

-Klára Jiřičná contributed to this report.

Laura Burgoine can be reached at
lburgoine@praguepost.com