A national markets education officer could help turnaround the perception of food and where it comes from in the future, the trade was advised last week.
New Covent Garden Market Authority (CGMA) communications officer Helen Evans told the NABMA conference the demand seen for its schools project could be met if more markets got involved and someone could co-ordinate a similar initiative on a country-wide basis.
CGMA started the project in 2007, to coincide with the Year of Food and Farming and reach out to local growers.
The first year saw eight sets of local primary school children being taken to producers to see how food is grown, before being taken on a tour of the market and given hi-vis jackets with the words, Fruit Buyer in Training, printed on the back.
The second year encompassed 250 children aged between nine and 16, who were encouraged to meet traders and develop their own business plans.
CGMA communications manager Helen Evans said: “We realised that if young people don’t know how food is produced, they sure as hell won’t know how it gets to the table. They have become used to seeing food in a sanitised environment, like the supermarkets and they have no understanding that somewhere like NCGM actually supplies 40 per cent of the food that is eaten outside the home in London.
“The market is 57 acres but no one in the community knows that we are there because we are behind a brick wall and most of our operations are at night.
“However, CGMA recognised that with its plans for redevelopment and the subsequent need for planning applications, this needed to change.”
She added: “The reason that this project has worked so well is that, from day one, it was designed with education in mind. We have far more demand for than we can meet. I don’t just want money; I want a national markets education officer for London and the South East, or even nationally, to get our message out to schools.”
