SA Farmers Market

SA Farmers Market trades at Pooraka, in the shadow of a genuinely significant piece of Australian produce market history. Adelaide's fruit and vegetable wholesale trade operated out of the city's East End for decades, through the East End Market Company and the Adelaide Fruit and Produce Exchange, before outgrowing that inner-city site entirely as the population and production costs grew.

Beside Australia's first privately owned wholesale market

In 1987, growers, wholesalers and retailers came together to form South Australian Produce Markets, a private company that built an entirely new complex in the northern suburb of Pooraka. When it opened in October 1988, it became Australia's first privately owned market, a genuine first for the country's wholesale produce industry. SA Farmers Market now gives everyday shoppers their own access point into that same produce ecosystem.

Reviewers consistently praise the value, describing fruit and vegetables noticeably cheaper than standard grocery stores, though parking is a genuinely common complaint, with several specifically recommending arriving well before closing time to avoid long queues into the car park.

Good to know before you go

Entry is $2 per adult, with children 16 and under free when accompanied by an adult, and both cash and card are accepted at the gate. Arriving well ahead of closing time is worth it, given consistent reviewer complaints about parking queues building in the final half hour. The site itself belongs to the South Australian Produce Market, the wholesale complex that trades here through the week.