Fresh food markets of all shapes and sizes have always held a fascination for the public, particularly those wholesale premises with long historical associations whose tenants operate while the nation sleeps.

So it was the bright idea of the BBC to recently run a series featuring three of the best known: Billingsgate, Smithfield and Spitalfields, where the City of London is the benign landlord.

Selling meat, fish and fresh produce all require different skills beyond the obvious, but these national landmarks also reflected a remarkable number of similarities.

All are close-knit communities, male dominated, with their own lingo not found in the Oxford Dictionary. The tenants, their staff and porters still work long and unsociable hours in a nocturnal world.

Each have had to adapt to changing times, tinged with a natural sadness when remembering the bustling glory days before multiples sourced direct.

This uneasy shadow inevitably still lingers as they look to their futures, but at least one encouraging factor is Spitalfields, which seems to be the best placed to withstand what has been a basic shift in distribution patterns.

This is partially due to its foodservice customers ranging from cafes to top-class restaurants and hotels, but in particular meeting the demands of the country’s ever-widening ethnic population still using their own style of traditional retailers.

Much of the programme dwelt on this metamorphosis, making the episode feel like the most recent chapter in the market’s social history is still being written.

With the exception of the search and discovery of an etrog sought out for a Jewish festival, more might have been made of the fact that Spitalfields now appears to be the source for anything that would once have been classed as “queer gear”, a term which has almost disappeared from market parlance.

Scant information about the fruit’s provenance and benefits from airfreight hardly scratches the surface of what is a fast-moving and complex commodity market.

I’ve also always felt that when the media turns its attention into fresh food marketing the factors which affect pricing are ignored.

Produce, meat and fish again share the fact that they are not just seasonal, but at the constant mercy of the weather.

Sadly perhaps, today’s consumers probably don’t really care too much about the detail of what goes on behind the scenes to keep the national larder stocked - until it hits their pockets. -