For more than a decade now, Varna Farmers' Market has been bringing together people who believe in quality, seasonal and locally produced food, proving that food can be both culture and community.
Today, we introduce you to Yanina Hristova, Hristina Petrova and Nikola Kutashki – the founders and organisers of Varna Farmers' Market.
Varna Farmers' Market began in 2014 as a natural continuation of a civic initiative – Varna's first food cooperative, Hrankoop Varna.
At the time, it was almost impossible to find environmentally clean food. There were no organic food shops, farmers' shops or direct sales from producers. It all started with a Facebook post by a woman from Vinitsa neighbourhood, who shared that she had a large quantity of organic cherries and wanted to offer them to other people. Similar one-off initiatives took place every week. Back then, our children were still very young, and we were desperately looking for organic food. That was how Hrankoop Varna came into being – an informal civic initiative dedicated to finding good-quality food directly from producers.
There was no suitable legal framework for us to exist under then – and there still isn't one today. We decided to create a market, so that producers and customers could meet directly while remaining within the law. For many years, the market was held on privately owned premises at Mall Varna, and later at the Festival and Congress Centre.
We are grateful to the administration of Mayor Blagomir Kotsev and to the friends of the market, who stood behind us at the end of 2024 and helped us secure a municipal location for the first time. As a result, since 4 January 2025, Varna Farmers' Market has been held every Sunday in the square between Dupkata car park and Hotel London. The market has gained greater public visibility, and the event itself has become a favourite meeting place, filling Sundays with a special festive atmosphere.
We had no idea whether there would be any interest in the first market, which was held at the open marketplace in the Chaika neighbourhood. As it turned out, there were so many people that it was difficult to move through the crowd. At the time, this only made us happy, because we realised that something everyone had told us would never work had been welcomed with tremendous enthusiasm by the people of Varna.
That day, Raya from Kapantsi Farm in the village of Osenets and Ovcharnika Farm took part in the market for the very first time. Both farms are still with us to this day.
At the time, the topic was not widely discussed, but people were already travelling freely across Europe and around the world, becoming increasingly aware of the risks associated with industrially produced food. Many still remembered the taste of food from the countryside, produced on small farms.
Back then, shops offered far more imitation dairy products, while most fruit and vegetables were imported. Today, situation is different – people who seek out and appreciate locally produced, carefully selected food have a choice.
This whole development is largely due to the fact that there is demand for this kind of food, as well as producers who share the values and expectations of their customers. At the same time, it is important to acknowledge that the organisers of Varna Farmers' Market are the same group of people who have, for many years now, been providing the right conditions for the market to continue to exist. We are deeply grateful to everyone!
In the beginning, we started with around ten producers. Today, there are between 40 and 50.
A large number of these producers took the important step of investing in their businesses and becoming officially registered. What began as a hobby has grown into small businesses run by people who pay taxes and continue to develop. There are also those who chose to remain unregistered. Unfortunately, they cannot officially take part in the market.
As for its values, the market continues to grow and evolve, but its vision remains the same - to create opportunities for connecting local producers with the people of the city.
Our role is to provide conditions that make things as easy as possible for producers - so that they only need to bring their products, focus on production, and not have to worry about everything else.
We rent storage facilities and event space, organise the site, set up and dismantle the market, provide the electrical infrastructure, handle the administration and communication with the Bulgarian Food Safety Agency (BFSA) and other institutions, maintain the accounts and all required records, carry out regular visits and inspections, coordinate participation, and seek out and select new producers.
Without this organisation, which often remains invisible, the market would have developed in a much less sustainable way.
We have several different categories of producers:
1. Certified organic and biodynamic producers - they are always given priority at the market. In their case, all inspections are carried out by the certification body.
2. Local producers who follow practices such as regenerative agriculture or permaculture. These practices are declared by the producers themselves but, for various reasons, are not certified. In such cases, we regularly visit their farms and make this information available to the wider public.
3. Conventional local producers who use plant protection products and fertilisers according to a programme prepared by an agronomist. Our role here is to select producers who nevertheless apply farming practices that are considerate towards the land. We require them to have regular consultations with an agronomist and to be responsible for meeting quarantine deadlines. We specifically request that they not use glyphosate, for example, Roundup and similar products, as a herbicide.
In this way, we strive to provide as much transparency as possible about how the food at the market is produced. Of course, customers also have a responsibility when making their choices. We encourage people to talk to the producers and, whenever possible, to visit their farms.
That is the true purpose of the market - to help customers build a relationship with the people who grow and produce our food.
We always visit producers' farms before they join the market, or shortly after their first participation. We aim to visit every farm at least twice a year, and some even more frequently.
For us, relationships are extremely important. If a producer offers excellent products but treats fellow producers, organisers or customers with disrespect, we part ways with them very quickly. Producers are not simply suppliers – they are people we work with on an ongoing basis.
There have also been cases where we discovered unfair practices – for example, a producer offering products they did not actually grow or produce, or claiming to have quantities they did not have. This is a serious violation of the market's rules, and in such cases we terminate their participation immediately. Over all these years, this has happened only two or three times. The vast majority of our producers are honest and conscientious, and some have been with us since the very beginning.
Another thing that matters greatly to us is that producers approach their work professionally - that they continue to develop, improve their skills, listen to their customers, and introduce new products in response to the needs of the market. These are the producers we value the most.
Let us tell you about the Bulgarian specialty coffee roastery Vedra. They import high-quality green coffee beans from small farms and roast them here in Bulgaria. Taking part in Varna Farmers' Market introduced them to customers who recognised and appreciated the quality of their work to such an extent that they began receiving invitations to cater large corporate events.
Our newest addition to Olivier's Bakery is a French-style bakery owned by the Frenchman Olivier and the Bulgarian Alex. Olivier owns a bakery in London, where he bakes exclusively for farmers' markets. In April 2026, they opened their bakery in Varna and are already looking for a larger space with greater capacity, as demand for their products has been enormous - not only from individual customers but also from businesses.
Another similar example is VKUSnaGRADINA ("Tasty Garden") - an organic farm in Ignatievo with 20 decares of greenhouses and open fields. They joined the market a few years ago. Today, they serve online customers across the country and supply restaurants and hotels, yet they continue to attend the market regularly, where they meet people face to face.
Varna Farmers' Market is like an incubator for small food businesses. It offers them unique opportunities for visibility and growth. It is important to point out, however, that we do not encourage producers who want to participate solely for the publicity and access to new customers. We are not a trade fair - we are a market. Our goal is for producers to offer genuine products for sale, so that customers can regularly buy these foods directly from the people who produce them, every Saturday or Sunday.
Above all, we are a market - a real, living, vibrant organism. And as such, it becomes a space for all kinds of new opportunities - meetings, new connections and initiatives. That is how it has always been. A market is a place where many paths cross, and it is in such places that life is born.
There is room here for people who value local and fresh food. There is room for meat eaters, vegetarians and vegans, as well as for people who follow a gluten-free or any other type of diet.
We are open to the world and committed to clear product origin, fresh food, respectful relationships and transparent rules. We do not impose a single way of eating or thinking.
The truth is that tourists are rarely our customers. It is relatively uncommon for organised groups or individual visitors to come to the market. Many spend their holidays in all-inclusive hotels and do not have the opportunity to experience local food. We would be delighted to see this change and to welcome more tourists to the market.
It's good that Varna Municipality has a clear strategy and action plan, agreed with all parties, about what kind of tourists we want to attract. Appropriate and coordinated steps for this, including infrastructure, events, markets, exhibitions, concerts. If we all work together, there's no way Varna won't shine with its true light. For now, it is mostly we, the locals, who know that light. But it has the potential to shine much, much brighter.
Yanina: For me, Varna is its wild beaches and forests, the open space, the sea... and horse mackerel :)
Hristina: The scent of suntan lotion carried by people in the summertime.
Nikola: For me, Varna is the sea... standing on the shore feeling the salty air.
