London’s New Covent Garden market has won bronze in this year’s World Union of Wholesale Markets (WUWM) awards for a project encouraging traders to sell more local produce.
The market started a ‘local food project’ after finding that 30 per cent of the market’s wholesalers sold no local produce in 2007.
The initiative launched in 2009 and by 2010 the number of wholesalers selling local produce had increased by six percent.
The market submitted an entry for its achievements to WUWM when it was announced the theme for the awards would be “excellence in developing the link between the market and local producers”.
The gold medal went to Marché de Gros Lille wholesale market in Lille in France.
It scooped the top prize for creating a certification programme that supported producers that delivered high quality and provided them with fair returns without impacting on price.
The silver award went to South Korea’s Garak Market in Seoul for its efforts to offer financial support and incentives to local producers and pursue sustainable relationships with farm villages.
A WUWM Certificate of Merit was also granted to Sydney Markets in Australia for providing producers competitive trade and effective distribution.
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