As a counterpoint to Black Friday's mindless consumerist frenzy, Town is the Garden spoke of alternatives to the 'traditional' market economy - widely assumed by the majority of the population to be only type of economy.

This alternative way of approaching systems of value and exchange is a core principle behind the Town is the Garden project, and can be seen in action in their Barter Shop, an experiment in cutting food waste through person-to-person exchange, without the need for any financial transactions.