Successful Weekly Organic Market in Lisbon

Picture: Mercado de Agricultura Biologica

Laughing, Vasco da Pinto (picture) pulls fresh spinach out of a box: “I learned the basics of organic agriculture in Switzerland.” While he was growing cabbages and other vegetables on an organic farm, he was thinking to himself he could do the same at home in Portugal. In 1999, he returned and began to convert a farm 120 km from Porto in northern Portugal. Since 2002, he has been selling organic products with ever increasing success. His vegetable farm now employs 25 people and it is the most successful of its kind. Two sons help their 49 year old father both to grow crops on the 14 ha of land and to sell them. He not only sells his goods every Saturday at the organic market in Lisbon - he also supplies wholefood shops and supermarkets. Mr Pinto regularly supplies 20 clients in Porto and 30 in the Lisbon conurbation, and demand is growing. In 2006, he anticipates a 30 % growth rate. He is in the process of setting up a new project: he has leased land in Guinea-Bissau, hired a few workers and is producing vegetables and tropical fruits to increase the length of the season. “In Portugal we can’t harvest very much between December and March, so it makes sense to fill the gap with these products,” Mr Pinto explains.

Customers flock to his stall, the first in the line of a dozen stalls standing on a wide pavement at the edge of a municipal park, and then move on with bulging bags to the other stalls or sit down on a bench to chat to friends. At one o’clock in the morning, father and son leave San Pedro do Sul in northern Portugal in their lorry laden with produce. By two o’clock in the afternoon, they have usually sold 90 % of their goods, and they load what remains into their refrigerated vehicle for the journey home.

Similarly, Biofrade has proved to be a success (www.biofrade.com). The brothers Rui and Antonio Oliveira Gomes also sell fresh fruit and vegetables that they produce themselves on 27 ha or buy in from other organic farmers. In addition, they sell a range of dry goods, including the beans and rice so loved by the Portuguese. But bananas from Madeira and pineapple from the Azores are home-grown too, because these islands in the Atlantic belong to Portugal. The word ‘frade’ in their name has two meanings: it is the name of a village they come from 70 km north of Lisbon, and it is also the name of a small type of bean which they produce.

On Saturday morning, 200-300 customers come to shop at their market stall. Since the two brothers can no longer cope with growing crops and marketing by themselves, they now employ ten people. Rui Gomes is delighted with the ways things are going:  “Our turnover has doubled in each of the last two years, and we are expecting the same this year.” As well as the weekly market in Lisbon, they send their produce to the weekly organic market in Porto that is also held on Saturdays. They supply a large number of shops too, and for four months they have been running a 20 m² stand in a department store in Lisbon belonging to the French Auchan chain. They are very happy with the level of demand but less so with the terms of the lease for the stand. Whilst direct marketing at the weekly market and at Auchan is flourishing, turnover with the wholefood stores has not developed at all well. As so often happens when wholefood shops have just been set up, there is a lack of expertise in dealing with green organic foods and a lack of chilling facilities.  Customers can hardly be blamed for not wanting to buy limp vegetables at twice the price.

Quinta do Montalto (www.quintadomontalto.com) sells jams and spreads made with tomatoes, apples, oranges and quinces bearing high value labels.  Also the wines, vinegar and fruit juices produced on the 18 ha farm are bought readily by the customers at the weekly organic market.

Marco Morgatto (picture) who is also present at the market, provides a delivery service for organic products under the name Emporio biologico (www.emporiobiologico.com). He already has 200 customers but, as he points out, that is far too few. The market is an opportunity for him to acquire new customers. On the internet, he offers a free selection from around 500 articles and standard boxes of vegetables to be delivered. He works together with vegetable producers who supply him regularly with fresh vegetables. Approximately 80 % of his products, which he delivers to a distance of about 30 km around the capital, are sourced in Portugal.

The people running the stalls would appreciate more support from the local authorities. The organic market is not advertised, toilets do not exist and the electricity supply is unreliable. Despite this state of affairs, the local authorities charge a fee of 100 Euros per stall per month.  The sale of meat, fish and cheese is forbidden, even when the usual strict regulations regarding refrigeration are adhered to and even from vehicles adapted for selling goods.

Contacts:
Vascopinto1@sapo.pt
Biofrade@hotmail.com
Delivery@emporiobiologico.com