Use of allotment

[Al Lotto]

Does anybody have knowledge of the National rules governing the use of allotments for producing products for sale? please.

[sprout]

I don't know of any national rules relating to selling produce Al, the national rules tend to be about provision/change of land use rather than tenants' use. If owned by your Local Authority (87% are run by LAs), they will certainly publish local rules on tenants' use. These vary from LA to LA. Who owns your allotments?

[oldherbaceous]

Al Lotto, a very good question, but i'm not sure of the answer.
I shall have to ask about our allotments, to find out.

Kind regards Old Herbaceous.

Theres no fool like an old fool.

[lizzie]

I think it's down to the local agreement. I know that we're not allowed to sell produce. We were going to do this to the local community and plough the profits back into the association. We were unable to cos of the Local Authority rules.

I'd check those out if you're on a local authority run/owned site

[taralastair]

Recently on BBC2 there was a programme about a chef in London opening a cafe using only produce from inside the M25. He wanted to use produce from allotments but was told he couldn't because of rules mentioned above. However, one allotment group said they could get around this law by selling him a box, and if that box happened to have some veg thrown in for free, so be it. Sounded a clever way around it, don't know how well it worked in the end.

I have often wondered whether I could sell products made from allotment produce, i.e. jams, cakes, etc. Can anybody else shed more light on this?

Tara

[sprout]

I know someone who runs a little business selling jams and preserves made from their allotment produce at farmers' markets. Is it 'legal'? I don't know - but suspect the value-added (jar, sugar, vinegar, spices) overcomes the 'don't sell your produce' clause. Most authorities turn a blind eye to the old boy selling his caulis outside Waitrose

Producing and selling industrial quantities of asparagus might be a different story!

[peter]

There is national law.
See http://www.communities.gov.uk/index.asp ... #P69_10508

I remember seeing something somewhere which said you could sell up to 10% of your produce, b ut I think that was intended to apply for gluts of one particular crop which would otherwise go to waste.

[jopsy]

around here people just have little tables with produce on asking for donations

[Chantal]

We're allowed to sell any "surplus" and it's left to us to decide what that is. I don't think anyone abuses the situation so it works fine for us. We're an allotment association though, does that make a difference?