If you are delivering food in London, whether cooked or raw ingredients, the first thing to do is make sure you’ve got the right kind of vehicle, and as regards fridge van hire London has plenty of options. But be discriminating: don’t accept a rusty, rattling old thing, because if it is past its best as a road vehicle, chances are the refrigeration unit has seen better days, too, and just getting to your destination is one thing, but getting there with your goods in prime condition is another.
London’s food markets can be broadly divided into the traditional (British)and the modern (international). The world famous names are Covent Garden for fruit and vegetables, Billingsgate for fish and Smithfield for meat, but they are not like they used to be. Greengrocers, for instance, now head for New Covent Garden, because much of the old area was taken over in the late 20th century as a focal point for restaurants, bars and other establishments more in keeping with the times.
Similarly, Spitalfields moved from the City of London out to the east in Leyton as the commercial landscape of London evolved. Billingsgate moved out to Poplar in 1982, and the original building has been given a new lease of life in the world of hospitality and events.
Ask a younger 21st century Londoner about markets and they will probably start with Borough Market near London Bridge, a wholesale centre that also teems with food traders.
Out and about, the street markets tend to reflect the countries from where their immigrant populations came, which brings benefits for people brought up in the UK, because they can find ingredients used in the increasingly cosmopolitan national diet. Somewhere like Deptford in south London, for instance, previously overshadowed by historic neighbouring Greenwich, is now alive with exotic fruit and vegetables from south east Asia, Africa and other regions. It’s a similar story in west London, where the concentration of Asians is high, and they have brought their vegetables, herbs and spices to places such as Southall.
That is not to say that British produce is disappearing; fridge van hire in London helps growers in city gardens and those with smallholdings further out to bring their produce to farmers’ markets from Chelsea and Marylebone to Ealing in the west, Walthamstow in the east and Camden Town and Finsbury Park in the north.
One thing they all have in common: it needs to be kept cool.
