By the time most Londoners got out of bed on Monday morning, Gary Marshall was finishing up at New Covent Garden market.
Located on the south bank of the River Thames, surrounded by tall buildings that glow in the early winter, the wholesale market is the UK’s largest for fruit, vegetables and flowers.
“It’s London’s best-kept secret,” the market’s chief executive Jo Breare told AFP on its 50th anniversary.
London’s Covent Garden’s historic fruit and vegetable market was moved from central London to the south-west suburb of Battersea on 11 November 1974 for expansion and modernisation.
Marshall’s has been operating in the market for over 45 years, with almost 200 businesses supplying London’s local food, restaurants, hotels and offices.
He is the third generation of his family to be associated with the market, and his son George will take over his business, Bevington Salads, after him.
“New Covent Garden is part of us. It will be part of my son’s life, maybe my grandson’s,” he said.
“Once you’re in there, you’re literally there for life,” said Marshall, who is also chairman of the New Covent Garden Tenants Association.
Chris Ratcliffe—Bloomberg/Getty Images
‘like magic’
For the 2,000 or so people who work in New Covent Garden, the working day starts around 10:00 pm (2200 GMT), with products coming in from all over Europe and the world.
“Once you get here at 10:00, you have a cup of tea, you check to see if your products arrive.
“And then it happens. Then the buzz started. The market is alive and well,” Marshall explained, his eyes lighting up with pride.
Traders sell their wares the ‘old school’ way – face-to-face – in the early hours, then when the sun rises, they are shipped across the capital and the South East.
“So by the time people get out of bed and walk into their hotel or office or school or government building, it’s there … It’s like magic,” Marshall said.
“If you’re here at one, two or three in the morning, it’s like a small city with hundreds and hundreds of people,” said Wanda Goldwag, president of the Covent Garden Market Authority, which manages the New Covent Garden Market.
The spacious complex also has its own cafes and a post office open from 03:00 to 13:00.
According to Marshall, night working hours, which have been in place for a decade to remove commercial daytime traffic in the British capital, have made it difficult to attract the younger generation.
But the market and its vendors have weathered many storms over the past half century.
When demand declined in the late 19th century as supermarkets grew, New Covent Garden turned its attention to catering.
Chris Ratcliffe—Bloomberg/Getty Images
The importance
The market still hosts Michelin-starred restaurants, celebrity chefs and famous London landmarks such as Harrods and Claridge’s.
One loyal customer is French chef Pierre Koffmann, who frequented the market when he ran La Tante Claire, his three-Michelin-starred London restaurant.
“It was a pleasure to come here, it was different to meet people and talk about vegetables,” Koffmann told AFP.
Now it mainly comes down to buying flowers, from bouquets of pink-purple hydrangeas to boxes of roses and tulips, which CGMA says supplies 75% of London’s flowers.
For Goldwag, staying relevant is one of the main challenges.
“So many of us buy our food in supermarkets now. And of course, in tough economic times, everyone is very money conscious,” he said.
“Verbal markets need to ensure they remain relevant and sustainable.”
London’s other major wholesale markets, Smithfield Meat Market and Billingsgate Fish Market, have an uncertain future after plans to relocate them were shelved.
“They could soon be working from anywhere,” Marshall said, adding that New Covent Garden would “support” other markets.
In New Covent Garden, however, business is booming, with a turnover of 880 million pounds ($1.1 billion) last year, plans to regenerate before the end of the decade and a guaranteed lease for at least the next 25 years.
“I don’t know if I’ll still be here in 25 years,” Marshall said. “But he will be my son, without a doubt.”
