About
The AoLM is made up of the six wholesale markets located within the Greater London area. These are:
Billingsgate Market
Billingsgate is the United Kingdom's largest inland fish market. An average of 25,000 tonnes of fish and fish products are sold through its merchants each year. Approximately 40% of that tonnage comprises fish imported from abroad. The annual turnover of the Market is estimated to be in the region of £200m. Billingsgate Market is served by almost every port in the United Kingdom-from Aberdeen to Penzance. Most of the fish is transported by road directly from the coast and arrives at the market in the early hours of the morning.
Borough Market
Borough Market is the country’s most widely-renowned artisan fine foods market embracing over 160 businesses, including wholeale and retail market traders, a casual market, retail food shops, restaurants and bars. Perhaps better known as a retail market, Bourough Market now operates wholesale trade every night except Satruday from midnight to 8am, and retail trade on Thursdays, Firdays and Saturdays; many of the market’s retailers in fact also supply wholesale.
New Covent Garden Market
New Covent Garden Market is the largest fruit, vegetable and flower market in the UK. With over 240 businesses, employing over 2,500 people, the Market supplies 40% of the fresh fruit & vegetables eaten outside of the home in London and is used by 75% of London florists. With a large range of food businesses, including tradtional wholeslaers, wholesale distributors and food processors, NCGM serves many of London’s best restaurants and hotels, cafés and bars, schools, hospitals and work places as well as independent retailers and street markets.
New Spitalfields Market
New Spitalfields is one of the City’s younger markets, starting life as a thirteenth century market in a field next to St. Mary Spittel on the edge of the Square Mile. The market now, in Leyton, covers 31 acres allowing it to house 115 trading units for wholesalers dealing in fruit, vegetables and flowers. The continuing specialisation by wholesalers in exotic fruit and vegetables menas that New Spitalfields now has over 60% of its traders sourcing Asian, Afro-Caribbean, Turkish, Chinese and Egyptian fresh fruit and vegetables to meet the needs of a cosmopolitan London, and beyond.
Smithfield Market
Meat has been bought at Smithfield for over 800 years, making it one of the oldest markets in London. A livestock market occupied the site as early as the 10th century and remained there until mid-Victorian times. Today Smithfield Market is a wholesale meat and provisions market serving Greater London and southern England. The market is managed by the City of London who provide and maintain facilities for the wholesaling of meat and poultry to retailers, secondary wholesalers and catering suppliers in London, the Home Counties and beyond.
Western International Market
Western International Market traces its roots back to a horse and cart based on the Middlesex side of Kew Bridge from which a grower traded his wares.
From this humble beginning the market now houses 54 traders on its brand new £19m 17.5 acre site in the London Borough of Hounslow, near Heathrow Airport. Specialising in exotic produce allows the market to cater to the increasingly diverse eating requirements of Londoners with a produce range including Indian grapes, Brazilian papayas, Iranian watermelon and Cypriot herbs.
