The last time this journalist bumped into a large group of Glaswegians with a common purpose was on a flight to Alicante earlier this year. The Scotsmen in question that day were wearing green-hooped shirts and on their way to watch Celtic play in the UEFA cup final in Seville the next day.
Part of the 80,000 strong Celtic army that converged on Spain, it was quite evident on asking some of the throng that they lacked direction. Just getting on the plane to Alicante was a result ñ how they were going to traverse Spain to reach their final intended destination was secondary. Suitably influenced by alcohol as they were, it is more than probable that a good few of them never made it. But on the flight back from Alicante two days later, the comatose passengers had obviously enjoyed their excursion.
The tenants of Blochairn market in Glasgow cannot be said to share that lack of direction ñ even if a good number were in Seville. In fact, a new sense of purpose has transformed the market in the last three years. Emerging from a decade of struggle against the well-documented backdrop of consolidation, the market has begun to thrive on the regeneration of the city of Glasgow. A revitalised city and a booming catering trade across Scotland has created a new outlook. The market is the only fresh produce site of any note in the country and the companies that have survived the leaner period are enjoying something of a renaissance.
Graham Wallace, markets manager for Glasgow City Council, is credited by many in the market as a catalyst for the turnaround. Which puts him in the unusual position of being an almost universally popular landlord. The market is virtually 100 per cent full, with the departure of one firm recently to premises outside the market prompting a flurry of enquiries for the space. Wallace has also worked tirelessly to promote the market with his own colleagues at the council and therefore attract the funding necessary to both maintain the site and move it onto the next level.
As with many UK markets, there has been a creeping in of non-horticultural firms, but not a landslide by any means. “The bulk of the units are still taken by fruit and vegetable traders,” says Wallace. “But there is one meat trader and a cash and carry, which in itself generates business for the other market traders. We did try to resist it, but there had been a contraction of traders and less units were occupied. Filling them spreads the risk for all tenants and for the council. It also allows us to maintain the lowest rates and rent of any market in the UK.”
The last big name exit from the market was Rosemans, a long-standing tenant which shut its doors two years ago. But this was a natural closure ñ the owner retired ñ not bankruptcy. The indications are that the market has settled. General consensus is that should there be any more departures, it will be down to natural wastage rather than financial difficulty.
The catchment area is huge ñ a population of more than five million in Scotland and a huge tourist trade look to Glasgow for the vast majority of their fruit and vegetable supplies. Edinburgh market is a shell of its former self and the nearest English wholesale competitor is Gateshead.
“This is it for Scotland,” says Wallace. “And tenants here have business in northern England and in Northern and the Republic of Ireland. There are more and more people coming through this market. Edinburgh has a negligible impact on us. Glasgow itself has grown significantly as both a tourist venue and Scotland's biggest business centre. I would say that around 75 per cent of the trade here now is catering supply. The independent retailers have dwindled of course, but there are also signs of a resurgence there ñ some of the smaller chains are making a comeback and basing that on high quality fruit and veg sourced from the market.”
Wallace believes the progress of the market in the last three years can be pinpointed to a focus on the four As: accessibility, affordability, awareness and availability. The market is ideally located, just half a mile from the motorway opens up routes to all points of the compass and it is also only five minutes drive from the city centre at off-peak times, facilitating deliveries to Glasgow and its environs. “There are still areas of this country that are not that well served by supermarkets,” says Wallace. “Tenants here have seen the opportunities and established themselves as the most obvious and best point of supply.”
A general emphasis on increasing quality of produce on the stances has paid dividends. There has also been benefit from the higher prices of the last couple of years ñ which have brought more margin into the business. There has been considerable investment in facilities by some of the companies on-site, which suggests renewed confidence in the long-term future of both the business and the site.
As well as the day-to-day business of selling produce, the market is benefiting from a number of external factors, both directly and indirectly. Well over 500 car boot sellers pay decent money to set up stall in the market every Sunday. This has become a weekly event in the city, with many people doing their weekly shop, says Wallace. At least one fruit and veg wholesaler has spotted the potential and taken advantage of the retail pickings.
Glasgow also has a well-established fruit for schools initiative, independent of course of the English government's project and further down the line. Every primary school child receives a piece of fruit each day and there is also a scheme to provide breakfasts at schools, which include fruit and vegetables.
National and local government initiatives to improve the health of the Scottish nation abound, and Wallace has ensured that wherever there is an opportunity to put fruit and vegetables to the forefront of peoples' minds, the market is seen as the source. Barrows of fruit at local health centres were sponsored by the council during healthy eating week recently, as the attempt to remove the ësick man of Europe' tag from Glasgow's neck intensifies.
“Since the appointment of health czar Gillian Kynoch, the Scottish government has been extremely proactive; and I think the main difference to the approach of the English schemes is that there is more emphasis on education,” says Wallace. “There is an attempt to deliver a package to children, not just free fruit, and the approach has been adapted to suit local needs in different areas. It is not heavy-handed, as there is recognition that it is necessary to change peoples' eating habits almost without them knowing it. I think the market is not too worried about who is providing the fruit in the initial stages, as it is the long-term effect on consumption that will benefit everyone involved in the trade.”
Although Glasgow is not the capital of Scotland, the city's market is undoubtedly, like London's markets south of the border, the country's focal point. A composite market, the talk of London, is almost reality in Glasgow, with the meat trader on site and the city's fish market next door. “We are definitely going down that route,” says Wallace. “Markets here don't feature as high on the [political] agenda as in London, but that is not to say they are neglected.
“We went through the best value process a few years ago and I think there is growing recognition of the value of the markets to the city. The socio-economic return to Glasgow is high ñ we are the third biggest employer in Glasgow north, which is one of the poorer areas of the city. If you factor in all the indirectly linked jobs too, it is easy to see how important the markets are.”
One of his main roles is to attract funding for market projects from his colleagues at city hall. A series of environment-friendly and ultimately cost-saving projects are in the pipeline, the first of which is a waste disposal and recycling system that should be in full working order by February 2004. Funding has been secured for an in-vessel composting system that will deal with six tonnes of market waste a day.
Another ambitious project will hopefully see the introduction of windpower to generate energy for the market, which will harness the wind rushing across the roofs from the Clyde Valley to create significant cost savings and renewable obligations certificates. “The planning consent is out for that and it should be a no-cost situation for me. The project will pay for itself and more,” Wallace says.
Not one for convention, he has also taken an unusual route to clean the market. “We have done the complete opposite of all the other markets and brought our cleaning operation in-house. Clearly there are cost benefits, but it also gives us greater control. Housekeeping has admittedly never been the strength of the wholesale markets, but there is definitely more of a realisation now that it is important to give customers a decent environment in which to buy their produce. It is not something you can force on people without penalties, and the improvement has to be trader-led.”
All of these developments are designed to enhance the position of Glasgow of course, but Wallace believes the UK's wholesalers can learn a lot from each other's experiences. “There is nothing to say that we will not tie up with other markets, in the UK or otherwise, at some point in the future. The wholesale market in its entirety needs to combine its efforts on many issues.”
Wallace is a board member of the World Union of Wholesale Markets (WUWM). While this does not necessarily have a noticeable day-to-day impact on the lives of tenants in Glasgow, they are in a strong position to benefit from the wider knowledge of the market manager. The WUWM, for instance, is producing a good practice guide for its members around Europe, a document that Wallace as a member of the good practice guide working group is extremely familiar with ñ he hopes to see it adopted by the wholesale markets en masse. “I would like to think so,” he says. “There is very little point us all going away as individual markets and doing our own research and our own thing. This is a non-competitive issue and there is no reason why all wholesale markets cannot follow exactly the same guidelines.”
So what of Glasgow's fruit and vegetable market physically. Built in 1969, it is one of the oldest “new” markets in the UK, but while projects such as adding windpower look to improve efficiency, there is no apparent desperation to renovate the entire site, as there is in many other cities. “The building is so basic it lends itself to modernisation,” explains Wallace. “Tenants are able to almost build boxes within their outer box. The exterior does need a bit of work and internally speed of through-flow is still vital as there is little storage capacity.”
Development is not just down to the council of course. Tenants are making investments in their own units, some have increased their storage capacity in their own ways or opened off-site warehouses. There is a feeling from some that a private market might be the order of the day some time in the future, but is not a driving desire. Wallace also believes there may be a day when tenants will want a fully-refrigerated market ñ again there is no impassioned plea from traders, yet.
Not one to stand still, Wallace is embarking on a research project to measure the socio-economic impact of the markets on Glasgow and how the performance of the market compares with the rest of the UK. Manchester's Smithfield market underwent a similar process before beginning its own modernisation programme and the consultant that eventually takes on the job in Glasgow will be asked to consider the local and national perspective, existing and future user demands, economic climate and social issues when assessing the market.
“We will wait until we have the full picture before deciding where we need to go,” says Wallace. “There is no prejudgment and our future strategy will be based on the findings of the research. Firstly, where are we now and secondly, where do we wasn't to be?” he asks.
If he was being rhetorical, the answers would be firstly, somewhere far better than five years ago and secondly, somewhere even better than this in five years from now.
HARVEY SPREADS A LITTLE HAPPINESS
Drew Harvie of Fyffes Redbridge is president of the market's Fresh Produce Association, which has 25 members and is due to vote in another four towards the end of this year. He is delighted with the progress the market has made in recent years.
“If you go back six or seven years and asked the traders about their futures, the answers would not have been too positive,” he says. “People have gone through some rough times here and there are less companies trading now, but that has made it better in general for those that are still on the go.
“Some of the bigger companies are no longer here and that has helped a few smaller businesses to flourish. There is a good feel about the market again now.
“The location of the market opens up customers in Northern Ireland, all over Scotland and much of northern England. As customers are often one or more days away, the market as a whole has been forced to up its quality offer. Suppliers also know there is no place to dump produce in Glasgow ñ it does sometimes happen, but we just put it straight back on the lorry and send it back where it came from.”
Harvie says there are a number of major issues that the association is addressing in conjunction with the city council. “Health and safety is a big one, and one we are continually looking at,” he says. “We are looking to upgrade the market in conjunction with Graham Wallace. The whole fascia will be dealt with soon and there are a number of projects that will be carried out progressively.”
Recycling and power generation projects have the backing of tenants too. “At the end of the day, they will save everyone money and anything that can offset rates and rents has to be a good thing. Segregation of waste has to be done more professionally for instance. There are a lot of companies that are more intent on making a profit than looking after the market ñ and in many ways you can't blame them. But in the long term, we all have to work together to improve the house management.”
Fyffes Redbridge, as the name suggests, is an amalgamation of the two companies' operations in the market ñ and neither could be described as small. Ostensibly it is a Fyffes company, while the Redbridge name has been retained to give continuity to the corporate offer. “Our sales have increased, but we haven't necessarily got bigger in terms of volumes of individual products,” says Harvie. “Twenty years ago, we used to talk in truckloads of a small portfolio of products, now we handle more than 300 lines in an attempt to be all things to all people. We sell everything and anything ñ it was the way we decided we had to go. There are no limits ñ if our customers want a product, we make it our job to source it.”
Since two became one, the Fyffes Redbridge operation has thrived, he adds. The company has nine stances in Glasgow and has invested heavily in chill facilities and general fixtures and fittings in recent months. “We have continued as before and gone from strength to strength. We concentrate on establishing specific lines before moving onto the next thing. It can be difficult to focus on one area, especially in the summer, but we have excellent staff here and they have to be on the ball in terms of selling, stock rotation etc,” Harvie says.
“We have had a good run and the market has had a good run ñ long may it continue,” he concludes.
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