All year round, every Saturday at 5am, stall holders in the Southern Vales rub their eyes, sufficiently caffeinate themselves and mount up to haul their lovingly raised produce to market. It’s a ritual that has been going since 2002 and the Willunga Farmers Market has become an institution we expect to be around for decades and centuries to come. 

The Willunga community is one of South Australia’s most progressive and environmentally experienced collectives. Farmers of live stock, vignerons and growers of vegetables lead the country in sustainable practices and developing consumer awareness around why it’s so important to eat local and how to live sustainably. 

Provenance is signature to the strolling experience of the market. Staples include the Little Acre Foods breakfast option; a Gruyère cheese and local foraged mushroom toasties with a coffee from range roasters Dawn Patrol. Filling up the tote is quick and easy with veg from Bull Creek, McCarthy’s Orchard and Village Greens all growing the most ridiculous healthy leafed produce you have ever seen. If you have any room left in your bag there’s even ice creams, honey, chocolates, bread from famed Small World Bakery and so much more. 

The market is a place where the community continues to drive resilience and is perhaps a golden insight into how small townships can provide huge economic and health benefits to city dwellers and the close regions around them.