“LCA helped us shape and then pull together the format of the month and set up the main event - the symposium -, as well as produce a detailed booklet which is still in use today. They quickly understood the objectives, sensitively handled the partners and succeeded in raising the profile of the important role of markets in London.”
There are over 200 markets across London. Farmers markets, street markets, retail markets and wholesale markets, supplying London with fresh, local and good value produce.
In October 2008, LCA worked with the five wholesale markets in London: New Covent Garden Market, New Spitalfields Market, Smithfield Market, Billingsgate Market and Western International Market, on the inaugural London Markets Month.
The month aimed to raise the profile of these markets with their stakeholders and primarily in the media. It also wanted to highlight the role they play in ensuring London has access to fresh produce 365 days a year by supplying restaurants, hotels, catering companies, cafes and small shops with fresh fish, meat, fruit and vegetables.
To do this LCA targeted a wide range of press from local papers around each of the markets, London regional papers and broadcast and also the trade press. Coverage was generated in catering, hotel, fresh produce and environmental trade press which targeted the customers and users of the wholesale markets in particular. LCA also targeted the regeneration trade press stressing the social and economic benefits of the markets to London’s communities.
The month of events, culminating in the London Markets Symposium held at City Hall, with Rosie Boycott as guest speaker, generated significant coverage across the media. LCA also managed to achieve mainstream coverage for these markets in the London press and London broadcast. To do this LCA focused on the benefits of consumers shopping at retail markets which can provide cheap, fresh and local produce which is in turn all sourced from the wholesale markets.
A variety of the markets’ benefits were promoted to ensure a wide breadth of media was targeted with different story angles. This ensured that consumers, producers, traders and customers using the wholesale markets and other markets across London could all access the story about the role of markets in London’s food industry.