Healthy Active by Design

Design Feature

Type of Project: Landowner Strategy

State or Territory: Northern Territory

Location: Urban

Malak Marketplace started in 2015 as a trial project for only six weeks right at the end of the season. The local and organic farmers market has now been four years running and has been growing and improving every season since.

Activating an urban space to bring together a diverse multicultural community

Malak Marketplace began from a need identified for a clean local farmers market in Darwin focusing on local, spray-free and organic produce which no other market in Darwin had.

The Marketplace is an evening market in the Northern Territory that activates an urban space to bring together a diverse multicultural community and showcase the talents, creativity and interests of local community members. The marketplace opens weekly in Malak at Chambers Crescent Car Park, from 4pm until 9pm every Saturday through the Dry Season (27 weeks).

Malak Marketplace responded to a need for a local farmers market focusing on local, spray-free and organic produce.

The market has developed a space that offers a platform for community building, as well as opportunities to develop small business enterprises which reveal and share a unique local community culture. With around 70 stallholders each week, the markets are well attended with around 1500 to 2000 local visitors and 200-300 tourists during peak season attracted to each market.

The Marketplace is continually introducing new ideas to promote quality organic produce, environmental sustainability, multiculturalism and to support local growers and traders

In a city known for markets, Malak Marketplace is an innovator. The markets have significantly committed management practises and stallholders to eco-friendly and sustainable development. The marketplace is continually introducing new ideas and methods focusing on quality organic produce, environmental sustainability, community education, multiculturalism, families, support of local growers and traders, musicians and performers and clean living.

Malak Marketplace has made a commitment to educate people about benefits to community through:

Local supplies of fresh and seasonal food
Knowledge of the provenance of the food
Opportunities to get to know the producer and learn about their production methods
Contribution to local environmental sustainability
Better nutrition for the family
Better value for money, more affordable food
Opportunity to try before buying
Providng a weekly social activity for the community
Education to increase knowledge of local products
Sensory training and experience
Benefits to local economy through buying local produce and accessing local businesses
Improved air quality and safety from reduced vehicle congestion around key activity centers and higher levels of cycling and walking
Contributing to sustainable communities through the reduction of vehicle kilometers travelled and the carbon footprint
A legacy of improved community health, social inclusion and quality of life.

The markets were innovative and true to their ethos in considering pasta straws to replace the traditional plastic products.

From little things big things grow

In the initial planning phase, other successful organic farmers market around Australia were researched, which included speaking to other market managers. Malak Marketplace was established with a 6-week trial in 2015 which gauged the level of community support and involvement. Since then is has been successfully operating during the Dry Season of 2016, 2017 and 2018. Malak Marketplace was recognised for its benefits to community and tourism by winning Community Event of the Year and two consecutive nominations at the Brolga Awards in the Food Excellence category.

Measuring success

The project team has evaluated stallholder feedback forms, market goers’ reviews and feedback from social media, monitored attendance and continue to strive for quality. Positive impacts include:

Increased quality, higher standards and ongoing promotion of producer-consumer conversations
More multicultural cuisine stalls to appeal to audience interested in exploring cultural roots of the community
Support for more local artisans to showcase their work on a casual basis without making a commitment to the entire season.

Project Team

The management team is run by the three Cofounders and comprises Board Members who are stallholders, as well as an Operations Manager/Stallholder.

Project Cost

N/A

Gallery

Malak Marketplace activates an urban space to bring together a diverse multicultural community and showcase the talents, creativity and interests of local community members.

The markets attract large crowds each week with around 70 stallholders, 1500 to 2000 local visitors and 200-300 tourists during peak season.

Malak Marketplace has committed to educate people on the benefits to community of access to fresh, local and seasonal food.

The markets are creating a legacy of improved community health, social inclusion and quality of life through:
- Increasing access to local supplies of fresh and seasonal food
- Building knowledge of the provenance of the food
- Better access to get to know producers and learn about their farming methods
- Better nutrition for families
- Welcoming breastfeeding women and their families with a dedicated breastfeeding area
- Offering better value for money
- Providing opportunities to taste produce before buying
- Offering a weekly social activity that is walkable for local neighbourhoods
- Providing knowledge about products
- Creating a healthy environment for attendees and opportunities for social connection
- Supporting sensory training and experience
- Preventing illness in attendees and their networks
- Living and beginning to thrive again with lifestyle diseases that affect individuals and their families
- Improving air quality and safety by reducing vehicle congestion around key activity centres and encouraging higher levels of cycling and walking
- Benefits to local economy through buying local produce and promoting local business
- Contributing to sustainable communities through the reduction of vehicle kilometres travelled and reducing the carbon footprint
- Supporting more local artisans to showcase their work on a casual basis and enabling artisans to attend the market without making a commitment to the entire season
- Contribution to local environmental sustainability
Sustainable and innovative practises at Malak Marketplace led to an award nomination for the community-based organic farmers’ market.

The market closed its most recent Dry Season run after an inspiring 27 weeks that saw the market lead the way in reducing plastic waste. The markets were innovative and true to their ethos in considering pasta straws to replace the traditional plastic products.

Organisers petitioned the City of Darwin to ditch single-use plastic from events by running clean living market tours, creating a water refill station, hosting origami bag and bin liner workshops, and creating a space for Indigenous basket weaving which showed people how to weave their own baskets rather than using plastic shopping bags.
- Growing local businesses and creating jobs
- Improving Malak’s community profile
- Reducing financial strain on government health costs through better eating and more active families
- Improved liveability of the local government area
- Increased use of community facilities and Public Open Spaces such as parks
- Improved perception of community safety through increased passive surveillance through more people in public spaces
- Strengthened intergovernmental and community partnerships
- Benefits to tourism through the enhanced use of parks and walking trails
- Increasing the quality and achieving higher standards and ongoing promotion of producer-consumer conversation
- More multicultural cuisine stalls to appeal to the audience interested in exploring cultural roots of the community
- Developing the Market’s online community through a website and educational spaces via a blog and events calendar with content strategies to increase online reach through use of social media to attract more visitors (local, interstate and international)

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