THE farmers’ market movement is in trouble in some areas of Scotland - certainly in the west, where Clarkston, Hamilton and Strathaven have closed and Lanarkshire and Overton also look to be emerging as potential casualties.

Casualties of what? Changing times, and a changing demographic. Falling footfall from punters who are disinclined to shop outside in inclement weather; from busy parents whose Saturday mornings are devoted to running children to football practice or dance class; the hassle of having to pay with cash; that hoary old chestnut of prices being higher than at the supermarket; and, quite possibly, an unspoken ennui with the sense of stasis if not actual decline in the offer.

There will be other reasons – and I’d like to hear them – but the fact remains that a lack of trade is putting some producers off the whole idea, which in some areas has been running out of steam for a while.

What’s not in dispute is the wealth of small and new producers who are desperate for an outlet for their wares that does not involve the supermarkets. Last year’s Let’s Eat Glasgow social enterprise food festival proved that. But who can blame them for losing faith in the farmers’ market model when they’ve paid upfront for their stall, humphed their fresh chicken/bread/lamb/crab claws all that way, set everything out attractively and put on the pinny – only to find that nobody turns up and they have to dispose of the unsold fresh stock at the end of the day?

Time for a different model, then. Monday’s launch of the Glasgow Food Assembly is a promising start. It's the belated cousin of the Food Assembly that has already taken root in Edinburgh, at Leith, and of several south of the border. They were inspired by the success of an online network of some 700 in France, Belgium, Germany and Spain, which allows customers to pre-order goods from local producers and pay for them before picking them up direct from the producers at a central collection point.

Glasgow’s is the funky Drygate, in the east end, every Monday evening from 5.30pm until 7.30pm, and the space for this “pop-up market” has been offered free by the young brewery.

According to the rules of the Food Assembly – a social enterprise model which originated in France in 2011 and arrived in London last year as the Hackney Wick Assembly – all food must come from within 100 miles, but Glasgow’s will offer produce from less than 80 miles and the average is 28 miles – so it’s as local as it can be. Producers set their own price and quantities, and if they don’t get any orders they don’t have to turn up, so food waste is reduced. On the day itself, no money changes hands, leaving customers and producers time to chat about the actual food.

Glasgow is the brainchild of Geraldine Pitt of Kilbarchan, who has just completed an MSc in Gastronomy from Queen Margaret University in Edinburgh. She has secured a daily-expanding producer list from Ayrshire, Lanarkshire and Renfrewshire that includes Nethergate rare breed meat, fruit and vegetables from GC Growers in Girvan, cheese by Ann Dorward at Dunlop Dairy, artisan chocolatier Stacey Hannah from Glasgow and McBride’s free-range chickens from Strathaven; old-fashioned, unhomogenised milk direct from Bryce Cunningham of West Mossgiel Farm in Mauchline, Ayrshire (he’s the farmer who last year made headlines when he took a cow into the Kilmarnock branches of Morrison’s and Asda and bought all the milk on their shelves and gave it away free to customers in protest at the price dairy farmers are being paid by supermarkets); there’s a new butter and cream producer from Dalry; and goat meat and blackface lamb from Ruth Harris in Strathaven. When we spoke earlier this week, Pitt had more than 100 registered Glasgow Assembly member customers. She is hopeful of recruiting community growers and food-based social enterprises such as Moogety Grub Hub of Govan.

She says she wants to return to the old social values of the SCWS (Scottish Co-operative Wholesale Society) ethos of the 1920s and 1930s. Based at Shieldinch, in Glasgow, it was once the largest food producing industrial estate in the world where a co-operative of local farmers sold their food from their own farms through the shops.

She believes fresh, unadulterated, locally sourced seasonal food should be available to everyone. She has received no start-up funding or support from the local authority. Only 8% of the price tag goes to her as host (cheaper than renting a market stall), and another 8% goes to the Food Assembly organisers, who run the site and supply branded re-usable carrier bags. Since Drygate are offering the space free, that means over 80% of the price goes to the producer – compared to around 15%-20% if they sold through a supermarket.

There are drawbacks: Monday evening at one central meeting place in the east end won’t suit everyone, especially those in rural areas. But who knows? Perhaps the very places losing their farmers’ market that might adopt the Assembly idea to build selling networks of their own.

Now that really would give power back to the people. And they might even have a roof over their heads into the bargain.

@catedvinewriter