There’s no better time to shop local, and no better spot than your local market. Check out these awesome SA-made products from the Adelaide Showground Farmers’ Market and meet the makers behind them.
Rainbow bagels, mermaid macarons and wild kimchi? Not exactly your average supermarket haul.
But that’s exactly what’s on offer at the Adelaide Showground Farmers’ Market – a Sunday ritual that makes grocery shopping fun. There’s coffee, brunch, live music, and actual conversations with the people who grow, bake or make what you’re buying.
With around 100 stalls each week, it’s the largest of SA’s six farmers’ markets – and proudly local through and through. Everything sold is grown, raised or made right here in South Australia, from Riverland citrus and KI seafood to sourdough, doughnuts and even dog treats.
“It’s more than just a place to shop – it’s a celebration of South Australian food culture and a hub for sustainable, community-focused living,” says Chief Executive Officer Christine Robertson.
Before you hit the stalls, meet some of the young South Aussies making the market more delicious – and more human – every Sunday.
Richard Chatterton – Pasta Social Club
If you’ve ever spotted a tee proclaiming “XOXO Pasta Girl” or “Less Upsetti, More Spaghetti,” there’s a good chance the wearer is a fan of Richard Chatterton – aka SA’s unofficial pasta boyfriend.
After several years running a free-range egg business — and making pasta on the side to use up imperfect eggs — Richard swapped chickens for carbs in 2023 and hasn’t looked back.
These days, he makes hand-cut, small-batch pasta in a rainbow of earthy colours – beetroot pinks, spinach greens, carrot yellows – using organic certified semolina and free range pasture-raised eggs on his family’s Barossa farm.
“It’s all whole food,” he says. “I buy veggies and eggs at the farmers’ market that go straight into the mix – no powders, no shortcuts.”
Richard’s range includes flavours like lemon myrtle, tomato and chilli and porcini mushroom – plus a gluten-free buckwheat and potato pasta that cooks in five minutes and actually tastes good!
Pasta Social Club is comfort food with a conscience – and a sense of humour. You can buy a punny poster, grab a bag of wattle seed fettucine, or just chat pasta with the guy who’s quietly building a devoted cult following.
“We’ve had people say, ‘You’re the main reason I came to the market today,’” he says. “That’s always lovely to hear.”
Phil Musson and Brittany Jones – Choice Mushrooms
Phil Musson still remembers when he first fell in love with mushrooms.
He was working as a chef in the Blue Mountains when his head chef pointed out a few wild saffron milk caps growing just outside the restaurant. “I picked them during prep,” Phil says.
“The guests were eating them 30 minutes later – just 30 metres from where they grew. That was it for me.”
Phil and his partner Brittany Jones were working in hospitality when they moved to South Australia in March 2020, just before the borders slammed shut thanks to the pandemic.
With hospitality work drying up overnight, they decided to try growing mushrooms in their backyard – and Adelaide was ready for it.
Now they grow more than 200 kilograms of gourmet mushrooms every week – including lion’s mane, pink oysters and scaly flame caps – and sell them directly to customers at the Adelaide Showground Farmers’ Market, while also earning the respect of top chefs across the state.
“The mushrooms are beautiful, but also super functional and nutritious,” Phil says. “Lion’s mane, for instance, is great for brain health. I use it like chicken at home – cube it up and throw it in a green curry.”
They grow everything in climate-controlled conditions, with a focus on freshness and flavour. “Some people think mushrooms are a vegetable,” Phil says. “They’re really not – they’re a food group all on their own.”
It hasn’t all been easy – a fire wiped out their warehouse in 2023. But with help from fellow growers at Pure Mushrooms, they kept going – and eventually relocated their business to a new shared site.
“We were completely devastated – but also so grateful,” he says. “That local support saved our business.”
These days, with a toddler at home and a stall full of regulars, Phil says he can’t imagine doing anything else.
“We’re just really happy. We get to grow something we care about, we get amazing feedback from the market community – and I finally don’t have to work someone else’s menu.”
Alex Fores – The Macaron Bar
The Macaron Bar began as a creative outlet for Alex Fores, who started baking macarons to de-stress from her former life in event management. “I just needed something for myself,” she says. “I’d post what I was making on Facebook – then people started asking to buy them.”
Fast forward nine years and Alex now runs a bricks-and-mortar shop in Christies Beach, makes up to 5,000 macarons a week, and hand-pipes every single one.
Her ever-changing flavours have ranged from the elegant (lemon cream, pavlova) to the iconic (fairy bread, Red Ripperz, Vegemite caramel – an idea from her daughter).
“We’ve had people come in and say, ‘We’ve been to Paris – and these macarons are better,’” Alex says. “That still shocks me. I’m just doing what I love.”
Most of her flavours are gluten-free thanks to the almond base, and she’s fiercely committed to making sure each one tastes exactly like what it says on the label. “If it says ‘almond croissant’, it has to taste like an almond croissant – or we won’t do it.”
Alex has been part of the Adelaide Showground Farmers’ Market since 2023, and says joining was one of the best decisions she’s ever made. “The stallholders, the organisers, the customers – they’ve all been so lovely. We’ve built a real following.”
Stacey Nash and David Greatz – The Bucket Project
Stacey Nash and David Greatz didn’t set out to run a farm. She was a nurse, he was an electrician – but they both wanted to do something better for the planet. So they quit their jobs, bought a block of land in the Barossa, and got to work putting nutrients back into the soil.
“We knew we wanted to grow something,” Stacey says. “But we didn’t really know what. We just started experimenting.” Then they hit on microgreens, which turned out to be quick to grow, easy to love, and absolutely packed with nutrients.
“Broccoli microgreens have four to a hundred times more sulforaphane than full-grown broccoli,” Stacey says. “They’re anti-inflammatory, antioxidant – and they’re great sprinkled on everything.”
Today, The Bucket Project’s stall at the Adelaide Showground Farmers’ Market is a local favourite, selling loose-leaf microgreens by the scoop and – more recently – pasture-raised eggs, cheekily branded as “bum nuts.”
The happy chickens that lay the bum nuts roam under the watch of three Maremma dogs (led by the ever-loyal Atlas) and are rotated across paddocks to help regenerate the soil. “You can actually see the land changing,” Stacey says.
They raise their birds from chicks, run everything off-grid, and heat their greenhouses using geothermal systems.
“It’s a lot of work,” Stacey admits. “We haven’t had a proper holiday in three years. But we believe in it. We’re building something better – for the land, for our daughter, and for the people who buy from us.”
Being part of the market community makes it all worthwhile. “You get that feedback every week – people who come back because it made a difference to them,” Stacey says. “It’s not just a stall. It’s a relationship.”
Why it matters
Every time you choose South Australian produce, you’re doing more than just eating well – you’re backing local jobs, small businesses, and a more sustainable future for our state.
“If people didn’t support us, we wouldn’t be creating new flavours or doing what we do,” says Alex from The Macaron Bar. “We wouldn’t have the means to do it.”
Buying local keeps money circulating in the community, reduces food miles, and helps small producers invest in better, more ethical ways of farming. Stacey from The Bucket Project says buying from producers makes you “feel more connected to your food – and the people behind it.”
You don’t need to overhaul your life to buy local. Small swaps can make a big difference – like bagged salad for market greens, or imported fruit for something actually in season.
How to buy local
Joining the ‘Buy SA. For SA’ movement is easy:
- Look for the state logo: Keep an eye out for products with the red state logo or ‘Buy SA. For SA.’ tags on supermarket shelves.
- Shop at local markets: From the Adelaide Showground Farmers’ Market to the Central Market and Barossa, there’s no shortage of options.
- Support SA-owned stores: Shop at Foodland, Drakes, Tony & Mark’s and other independent SA-owned businesses.
Find more about the Buy SA. For SA. campaign here.
