When the weekly shop unravelled at the cheese stall

Sunday, 8 March 2026

Stewart Sowman-Lund heads to Clevedon Village Farmers’ Market, where self-restraint was the biggest challenge.

It was meant to be an opportunity to stock up on groceries for the week, compare the experience to regular supermarket shopping, and perhaps offer some tips for surviving the never-ending cost of living crisis.

Instead, it became an exercise in self-restraint.

The Sunday Star-Times was invited to visit Clevedon Village Farmers’ Market, about 30 minutes south of Auckland city, to mark National Farmers’ Markets Week, which kicked off yesterday.

The annual celebration encourages punters to visit their local market and support local food producers at a time when grocery prices continue punish at the supermarket.

With my shopping budget in mind, and the weekly Food Bag delivery paused, this seemed like an admirable cause.

Perhaps it was the cheese stall, but suddenly any hopes of planning balanced meals were on hold.

Buffalo mozzarella, locally manufactured wine, fresh fruit ice cream, New Zealand-made Cornish pasties (I simply had no idea), artisan coffee beans, juicy pork sausages - all of these made their way into either my shopping bag or my stomach.

There were some essential items that were picked up, too. Crisp, juicy tomatoes, a massive broccoli, courgettes, capsicums and avocados - all affordably priced and fresher than you’d get in the veggie aisle.

It’s a cosy shopping experience; coffee is served in mugs like you might find in a local church kitchen, and customers are refunded a portion if you bring them back. You can also bring your dog, which proved a very overstimulating experience for both pooch and owner.

All of this may make it sound as though I’ve never visited a market before, which isn’t true, but I’ll confess to rarely using an outing as an opportunity to buy for the pantry or the fridge - instead usually heading straight for the food trucks out the back, of which there are plenty.

There are now over 30 farmers’ markets up and down the country, with 26 - Clevedon included - part of the national body: Farmers’ Markets NZ. The group says while the number of markets was fairly static during the 2010s, a few more have popped up since the Covid pandemic as people became more aware of eating and supporting local.

Helen Dorresteyn co-founded Clevedon Market in 2005 after wanting to launch a “kitchen table” business while raising young kids. It was a trip around the South Island that helped gave her the idea of backing local growers.

“We ate at all these roadside stalls and local little markets, and realised how well we were eating when we took the middleman out of the equation with the food,” she explains.

“When we actually got to buy direct from the grower, everything tasted just a thousand times better.”

With just 20 stalls at launch, the market - which runs every Sunday morning - has since grown to about 60, with a few extras during the Christmas period. It wasn’t easy going at first.

“It was almost like a chicken and egg situation, where you had to grow the market and grow your customer base. If your stall holders aren't sold out, then they're not going to come again. And if there's no stuff for the customers to buy, they're not going to come.”

Dorresteyn also founded Clevedon Buffalo Cheese, which she admits now takes up a lot of her time. The business was actually started after the market launched in response to a lack of local dairy products being available.

“That cheese came about because of the market, because I just couldn't get cheese there,” she says.

Pretty much right in the middle of the whole market site is Clevedon Strawberries, owned by Diana Gallagher.

She launched the business in 2014 and it has been a fixture of the market almost ever since - first selling fresh fruit and now creamy fruit ice cream.

The market, she says, has become a beloved part of the local community and an attraction for people from out of town as well.

“What a great day on a Sunday - go to the market, go for a walk in Hūnua [and] the beaches [are] close by,” she says.

“Because it goes all year and it's every Sunday, many people make it a regular part of their weekly shop. [The market’s] grown in a way that has been a really positive thing for the community.

Gallagher, who was manning the ice cream machine when the Star-Times visited, says she has never missed a market since first setting up shop.

“Part of the way I think about it is that if customers are coming, they get to know what's going to be there. And if you're not there, it's actually quite a let down for some of them. So that's my belief.”

When she’s not busy at work, Gallagher tries to pop around and get her weekly shop done as well - fresh eggs, avocados and veggies. “I love talking to the vendors. Often my husband comes with me to help set up, and then I’ll tell him, ‘I'm just going to go and do my shopping’. And he goes, ‘Oh, you were gone for a long time’. It's because everybody's friendly.”

While the market is predominantly food, Dorresteyn says there is a small “craft quotient” before Christmas. “I'm very picky about what comes,” she says. “I'm open arms to growers … small, little food businesses, people trying to grow something from zero to [a] significant turnover.”

One of the few non-food vendors on-site is Phillip Luxton, who runs Black Robin Knives and offers a sharpening service at the market each weekend.

He also says people are disappointed if he’s not there. “I have to be there every Sunday because, unlike a food store, people bring their knives out to me. If I'm not there, it really pisses them off.”

His operation is a well-oiled machine, and there’s a steady stream of customers lined up for much of the morning the Star-Times was there. That was a pretty relaxed day, he later says.

“It can get frantically busy. I mean, often on a beautiful day, it's heaving with people. Frankly, I can't understand why people want to participate when it's like that, but there you go.”

Luxton says he doesn’t get much of a chance to peruse what’s on offer, but his wife will often pick up shopping for the week when she’s around. He does, however, offer knife-sharpening services in exchange for a good feed on occasion.

“Either side of me… the pizza guy and there’s a kebab guy,” he says. The Cornish pasties, of which I bought two, are also “bloody good”.

Dorresteyn hopes people give market shopping a try, and says there has been a noticeable “uptick” in customers in the last two years which she believes is because of supermarket prices.

People keep coming back for the good produce, but also the experience of buying direct from growers - the same reason she was inspired to start the market two decades ago.

“They’re such nice people,” she says. “I see those people every single weekend and buy my produce from them. So I know them, I know their families, I know where they come from and I know who I'm buying from. It's really quite special.”