Imagining the Future Urban Food Market

More permanent than farmers' markets (though they can assume that role), urban food markets like London's Borough Market and Seattle's Pike Place offer counterpoints to the supermarket mainstream. Louise Marston reports on a event that took place late last year in Borough Market, bringing together "chefs, designers, policy makers, academics and market-goers [...] to explore ideas about what the market of the future might look like."

Marston writes, "The future of food is often treated either as an economic future - a future industry, with associated employment patterns and distribution routes. Or it is forecast as a global, ethical future - a looming crisis of growing population colliding with a growing preference for meat and processed food." Event participants considered a more holistic vision: food as an expression of community.

"There was also a desire to preserve the market as a meeting place, a place of conviviality. Some people wanted to emphasise the role of the market as a place for bartering, exchange and in capturing the full life-cycle of food, including its growing and waste."