No food markets? No problem...Mark and Laura showcase the best in Northamptonshire through Facebook markets

Food markets may have been cancelled recently but one Northampton businesses has still been giving shoppers the chance to browse the best food and drink in Northamptonshire.

Mark Afford runs What's Poppin, producing hand-made gourmet caramel popcorn in a range of delicious flavours.

Along with his partner, he has launched a food market on Facebook and come up with an ingenious way to create the feel of an outdoor market.

Mark explained: "We've been on planing on doing the Facebook market before lockdown and been tossing around the idea.

"Then lockdown came in and we wanted to try to support the people in Northamptonshire who are full-time with their businesses but were now not going to get the opportunity to go to a food market.

"We went from an idea to market in just four days," he said.

The idea is that vendors sign up to take part in the market by emailing [email protected]. Once the market begins, they each post every few minutes, giving customers the chance to "browse" their post, ask questions of the vendors and place orders.

"The response has been great - we get around 7,000 views on the event page and reach around 30,000 people.

"We have a network of around 60 vendors and it averages around 30 for each event. It's also given new businesses the chance to reach a new audience through the market."

With lockdown restrictions starting to ease, Mark says they plan to carry on.

"The plan for it is to keep it going but with markets reopening but we might switch it to doing it just for new businesses that are trying to get established.

"We just wanted to do something to support the industry and give an outlet for people who didn't have a direct route to market," Mark said.

The events run fortnightly and the next one is today, Saturday, starting at 5.30pm. The market then stays on Facebook until Sunday evening.