Growers Market ditched this summer

The Growers Market opening hours of 7am to 10.30am proved unpopular with Saturday shoppers. Photo / File

The Growers Market in Hastings will not be re-opening this summer.

"We are going to do it again next year, it is just we have too many things on - we are putting a lot of energy into the Apple Fest," Hastings City Business Association general manager Susan McDade said.

Modelled on a Whangarei market, which a study showed benefited all retailers in the CBD, the controversial Saturday morning market launched in November last year but struggled to gain traction. Some Farmers' Market stallholders worried it would undermine their Sunday market on the outskirts of Hastings.

The Growers' Market was planned to open on the first two blocks of Heretaunga St East but it instead opened on one block due to a lack of vendors.

It opened with 20 stalls and 1200 extra shoppers were calculated to visit the shopping precinct, but numbers dwindled.

Its hours of 7am to 10.30am were said to be unpopular with Saturday shoppers.

Ms McDade said surrounding retailers asked for the later hours because it attracted more people to their shops.

The largest volume of foot traffic occurred after 10am, forcing market vendors to turn away customers in time for the road to be reopened.

The later start did not halt shopper and vendor decline and the decision was made to move to the Mall, in sight of both Heretaunga St East and West, with the added attraction of no street closure.

The idea of Business Association chairman Michael Whittaker, the market courted more controversy after local supermarkets stopped stocking his Te Mata Mushroom Company produce, which Foodstuffs said was not in retaliation for his support of the market.

Apple Fest includes a month-long Apple Trail highlighting businesses in Hastings District that work with apples and a family carnival on March 19.