2023-08-05 18:26:49
View of the venerable hall Image: Philip Plickert
The royal palaces, restaurants and schools shop at the massive Smithfield Meat Market. A new mega hypermarket will soon be built in east London. But some retailers want to prevent the move.
The sweet smell of meat wafts through the Victorian halls of Smithfield Market. Hundreds of slaughtered pigs, lambs and sides of beef hang in the cold rooms, mountains of pink poultry and game are piled up in the displays. A nightmare for vegetarians, a feast for the eyes for carnivores. Trading started at midnight in London’s large historic meat market. Dozens of men (hardly any women) in white coats scurry down the aisles, pushing carts and hand trucks to the delivery trucks outside. Trading goes on until the morning, around seven o’clock.
Smithfield Market is something like the “Belly of London” – just as Émile Zola described the Parisian market complex “Les Halles” as the “Belly of Paris” 150 years ago. Virtually all meat for the UK Capital Region is traded at London Central Market in Smithfield, a few minutes’ walk from St Paul’s Cathedral. What is sold here ends up on the plates and in the stomachs of millions of Londoners the next day.
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