Nick Woods, Partner at Sunny Side Up, the PR & Comms agency that supports the work of New Covent Garden Market’s communications team, tells us just why the Le Marché  instagram feed is the talk of the town

Good Morning chefs! It’s all it takes, you already know who I’m talking about... because you, like me and 115,000 other people are a follower of Le Marché’s Instagram page and its cheery MD, Marcus Rowlerson.

One hundred and fifteen thousand people is a lot of followers for a relatively small B2B operation nestled within the embrace of New Covent Garden Market... so how has he done it? Why do so many follow this page? And is there anything the rest of us can learn?

Passion

This is a man who clearly LOVES fruit, veg and flavour. You just know it from watching the way he handles each piece, the knowledge he has about how and where it was grown, and by whom, the instinctive response when he taste-tests and the energy he brings every single day. Foodies love other foodies, and we can all see, whether we’re amateur home cooks or three-starred Michelin chefs, Marcus is addicted to fresh food like few others.

Knowledge

I have a friend who is an architect and, for as long as I’ve known him, he has looked up at the buildings around him as we walked, absent-mindedly stroking walls and investigating door hinges, building materials, sizes and shapes... he is simply, happily, obsessed. Marcus is his fruit and veg equivalent: he doesn’t just know his apricot from his almond, he knows his vanillacot from his Vesuvius Tomato, his Lemon Verbena from his lulu fruit and you just know that almost his entire existence revolves around knowing more, learning more and sharing his knowledge with anyone who seems even half-interested. When he comes across something new, he cannot help but be curious and he can’t wait to tell us about it.

Whether it comes from darkest Peru, deepest Asia or any other far-flung corner, he is able to contextualise it, compare it and celebrate it with the skill of a (well-) seasoned pro.

Eloquence

Sometimes people mistake eloquence for ‘talking posh’; Marcus ain’t no posho, but my God is he eloquent and engaging. In just 20 seconds he can have me drooling over whatever variety of lemon, tomato, blackberry, plum or parsnip he happens to be talking about, wondering which restaurant it’s going to and how I can get there. No gimmicks, no fancy lighting, no graphics – just a direct conversation with the camera which makes it feel like he’s talking to each of us directly. His use of language and body language is delicious, with products delivering visceral reactions as he tastes them and describes them back to us, making the viewer wish they could suck in the flavours too.

Likeability

If you’re a chef and you love food, you want to know you’re buying quality ingredients, of course... but it will always help if you like the people you’re buying from. Marcus is just a nice guy, the knowledge, the passion, the use of language, the lack of frill or frippery and the way he interacts with the one or two people off-camera helping to create the content.

If I was a producer on Saturday Kitchen I’d be paying Marcus to have a regular slot on the show to talk about what’s in-season, what’s new and supplying on-air chefs with all their ingredients, because you just know TV viewers would love him every bit as much as London’s finest chefs and his Instagram followers.

Consistency

He posts daily. He opens with his catch-phrase. He always has a direct conversation with the camera/viewer. He’s always the main man, even if he brings someone else in. He always shows, smells and tastes. Sometimes ‘consistency’ can become a byword for boring, but not with Marcus – every day is different and every variety is different.

As the man himself, would surely say, when it comes to B2B marketing to the hospitality industry, Le Marché is... simply wowser!