New Covent Garden Market teamed up with food redistribution charity City Harvest and the organiser of British Food Fortnight, Love British Food, to support the annual harvest festival service at Southwark Cathedral, on October 6^th.

Sarah Calcutt, above, who is a Non-Executive Director on the Covent Garden Market Authority Board, is also Chief Executive of City Harvest. She delivered the address during the service that outlined just why the work of Market tenant City Harvest is so valuable to the 20% of households across London and Greater London living in food insecurity.

City Harvest delivers 1.2 million meals a month to the capital’s hungry and, increasingly, across the country. The charity has expanded rapidly through the last decade, but said Sarah: “Tt hasn’t been enough, so we continue to grow. We could double in size tomorrow and there would still be unmet need.

“People who have never needed help before are flooding into soup kitchens, food banks, social supermarkets and food cooperatives,” Sarah told the congregation that packed out the cathedral. “Today, there are twice as many food banks [in Great Britain] than there are McDonalds outlets. There are as many food banks as there are branches of Tesco.”

“Half of London’s single parent households are in food poverty, just think how desperate that must feel, how precarious your life is, in every moment. Think how often that parent goes without, so that their children can eat.

“That is not sustainable.  That is not dignity. That is not acceptable,” she said.

Fruit and vegetables for the altar display were provided by traders at New Covent Garden Market

The service recognised the last day of British Food Fortnight 2024 and a reception was held at Glaziers Hall immediately afterwards. In introducing the Market as a key partner, Sarah referred to the “great London institution that is New Covent Garden Market” and its “big-hearted food businesses who have fed the capital for centuries."

She added: “The Market is home to every kind of fruit, vegetable or flower that you could ever imagine, businesses that exist to care for their local population, working with farmers from across the globe, delivering the healthiest diet of fine fresh produce."

Sarah introduced CGMA Chair Wanda Goldwag OBE, pictured below, to say a few words on behalf of the NCGM community.

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“I thought what you said [during your address] was very powerful,” said Wanda. “While listening to it, I also thought to myself ‘when was I last actually hungry?’ and the answer was in my early 20s when on one day in my life I did not have enough money to buy food. We scrambled around and found something called a traveller’s cheque and took it the Edgware Road where we knew someone would be able to cash it.”

For many people, Wanda inferred, her one day of being hungry can stretch into days, weeks and sometimes years. “Frankly, it’s a disgrace in the modern world that this is the case in this country and that’s why the work of City Harvest is so important and why we are so, so happy to be one of the partners to support you. We are as proud as possible to be part of this with you and I thank every one of the staff and volunteers at City Harvest for their work and wish them well,” she said.

Wanda, right, with Dr Chris Bishop, Master of the Worshipful Company of Fruiterers and City Harvest's Vice Chair, Shaun Browne

Jo Breare, CGMA's General Manager, with CGMA Board member Fiona Fell and Fiona's granddaughter Ebba