Good Market

Since Good Market focuses on curation and connection, the original plan was to link vendors with institutional buyers. This worked relatively well for apparel and housewares, but fresh produce and food were a challenge. Restaurants, hotels, and supermarkets were interested in the products, but the vendors were not ready. They were bringing available products to the weekly event, but they did not have experience consistently filling larger orders. The Good Market organic and natural food shop was started in 2014 to fill this gap and serve as an incubator for small-scale producers and new enterprises. As a social enterprise, Good Market provides services that a for-profit supermarket wouldn't consider. For example, rural producers often send products to Colombo by public bus or train, and the Good Market team works with tuk tuk drivers to coordinate pick up from the station. Around 2015, the Good Market team started to notice two changes. First, the type of applications started to change. In the past, people would apply because they wanted a stall at the event or because they wanted to sell products in the shop. The committee started to receive applications from service providers and international groups that didn't want to be at the event or the shop. They wanted to be recognized as a "Good Market approved vendor," and they wanted to be part of the community and linked with other vendors. The second change was the types of questions that people were asking. In the early years, people would call or write to ask what time Good Market opened and closed and where it was located. By 2015, people were contacting from Sri Lanka and abroad to ask new questions: How can I get solar power for my home? Are there any vendors I can visit near the East Coast? Who has eco-friendly packaging? Does any one have organic certified coconut oil for export? Does anyone in the community have financial services? The team was spending more and more time copying and pasting vendors' contact details and making introductions. These changes and discussions with friends working on similar issues in other countries led to the development of the Good Market online community. The online application form went live in August 2016 and the public version of www.goodmarket.global began rolling out in 2017.