Challenge: Part 1 of 2 in How much can you haggle or get for free?

I love the idea of haggling. Really, I do. It’s an age-old system of two parties negotiating the best deal for themselves. But I just happen to be spectacularly crap at it. Especially at farmers markets - I feel like a total cheap-arse offering a farmer-type peanuts for their organically grown and loving-tended potatoes. OK, so that’s not exactly the reality of the situation, but you know what I’m getting at. Nobody wants to be a scumbag.

So this really was a challenge for me on a number of levels. Especially as my local “farmers market” also happens to be one of London’s number one foodie tourist attractions, Borough Market. I generally make a weekly trip to Borough to pick up some goodies for the week – and to grab some coffee from Monmouth to kick-start the weekend. The thing is, I often go first thing in the morning, mostly to avoid the tourist crowds which really start to get crazy at about 11am.

But one week I happened to be there towards the end of trading, around 4pm, and noticed that the stall owners were madly discounting all their produce. So I decided to head back there at 3.30pm, to find out exactly how much I could haggle - or get for free.

First thing I noticed? Nobody is discounting at 3.30pm. It’s still packed with tourists milling around the stall counters and paying top price for produce. So there’s no need for the owners to discount or bargain with customers. I snuck up to a couple of stall owners and offered £2 for half a dozen sausages, and was just about laughed away. The embarrassment!

So whilst I waited for the crowd to dissipate and the day to wind down, I dedicated myself fully to getting as much free stuff as possible – ie. samples. Now,  I usually steer entirely clear of food samples. Honestly, I really don’t want your teensy bit of bread covered in oily pesto that has been man-handled by hundreds of other grubby fingers. Yeeuurk. So I literally had to swallow my germ-phobia and get on with it. I felt like a total scavenger,  swooping in on any out-stretched platter of crumbs.

But you know what? I did quite well. In fact, I just about made a three-course meal of it. Here’s what I scored…

STARTERS:
10x chunks of cheese
3x pesto on bread

MAIN:
2x samples of sausage
2x samples of ravioli

DESSERT:
3x pieces of cake
1x pieces of fudge
2x pieces of brownies

I was starting to feel quite full by the time 4pm drew near, so I had to draw on my inner reserves and steely determination to haggle with the best.

Coming up in part 2: The full haggling results! In the meantime - enjoy this video:

Birdy Moola goes to Borough Market! from OolaMoola on Vimeo.

How much can you haggle or get for free? Read more at our blog!