Birmingham Wholesale Markets
Encyclopedia
The Birmingham Wholesale Markets are the largest combined wholesale food markets
Wholesale marketing
The consumption and production of marketed food are spatially separated. Production is primarily in rural areas whilst consumption is in urban areas. Agricultural marketing is the process that overcomes this separation, allowing produce to be moved from an area of surplus to one of need...

 in the United Kingdom
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...

, with 235 trading units totalling 31000 m² (37,075.7 sq yd). Located just south of the Bull Ring in the centre of Birmingham
Birmingham
Birmingham is a city and metropolitan borough in the West Midlands of England. It is the most populous British city outside the capital London, with a population of 1,036,900 , and lies at the heart of the West Midlands conurbation, the second most populous urban area in the United Kingdom with a...

, they include markets selling meat
Meat
Meat is animal flesh that is used as food. Most often, this means the skeletal muscle and associated fat and other tissues, but it may also describe other edible tissues such as organs and offal...

, fish
Fish
Fish are a paraphyletic group of organisms that consist of all gill-bearing aquatic vertebrate animals that lack limbs with digits. Included in this definition are the living hagfish, lampreys, and cartilaginous and bony fish, as well as various extinct related groups...

, poultry
Poultry
Poultry are domesticated birds kept by humans for the purpose of producing eggs, meat, and/or feathers. These most typically are members of the superorder Galloanserae , especially the order Galliformes and the family Anatidae , commonly known as "waterfowl"...

, fruit
Fruit
In broad terms, a fruit is a structure of a plant that contains its seeds.The term has different meanings dependent on context. In non-technical usage, such as food preparation, fruit normally means the fleshy seed-associated structures of certain plants that are sweet and edible in the raw state,...

, vegetables and flowers and are run by Birmingham City Council
Birmingham City Council
The Birmingham City Council is the body responsible for the governance of the City of Birmingham in England, which has been a metropolitan district since 1974. It is the most populated local authority in the United Kingdom with, following a reorganisation of boundaries in June 2004, 120 Birmingham...

 under a charter granted in 1166.

History

Birmingham's wholesale food markets date from 1166, when the Lord of the Manor
Lord of the Manor
The Lordship of a Manor is recognised today in England and Wales as a form of property and one of three elements of a manor that may exist separately or be combined and may be held in moieties...

 Peter de Birmingham obtained a royal charter
Royal Charter
A royal charter is a formal document issued by a monarch as letters patent, granting a right or power to an individual or a body corporate. They were, and are still, used to establish significant organizations such as cities or universities. Charters should be distinguished from warrants and...

 permitting him to hold a market at "his castle at Birmingham", though later members of the de Birmingham family
De Birmingham family
The de Birmingham family held the lordship of Birmingham in England for four hundred years and managed its growth from a small village into a thriving market town. They also helped invade Ireland and were rewarded with the Barony of Athenry...

 claimed that markets in Birmingham had been held since before the Norman Conquest. It was this market that provided the first impetus to the growth of Birmingham as a commercial town from the twelfth century onwards. Until the nineteenth century the markets were held throughout the streets of the centre of the town: a cornmarket and Welsh and English markets selling cattle are recorded in 1553, with butchers shambles and a fish market recorded from the eighteenth century.

The organisation of the market was one of the main concerns of the Birmingham Street Commissioners
Birmingham Street Commissioners
The Birmingham Street Commissioners were created in Birmingham, England by the Birmingham Improvement Act 1769. Subsequent Improvement Acts 1773, 1801, and 1812 gave increased powers to the Street Commissioners...

 following their establishment in 1769, with the body taking on responsibility for the collection of tolls in 1806 and buying the marketing rights outright from the Lord of the Manor
Lord of the Manor
The Lordship of a Manor is recognised today in England and Wales as a form of property and one of three elements of a manor that may exist separately or be combined and may be held in moieties...

 in 1824, before handing responsibility to the Birmingham Corporation
Birmingham City Council
The Birmingham City Council is the body responsible for the governance of the City of Birmingham in England, which has been a metropolitan district since 1974. It is the most populated local authority in the United Kingdom with, following a reorganisation of boundaries in June 2004, 120 Birmingham...

 in 1854. In the early nineteenth century the clearance of buildings from the Bull Ring allowed the concentration of the markets on the site. In 1817 the Street Commissioners opened the Smithfield market on the site of the Birmingham Manor House
Birmingham Manor House
The Birmingham Manor House or Birmingham Moat was a moated site that formed the seat of the Lord of the Manor of Birmingham, England during the Middle Ages, remaining the property of the de Birmingham family until 1536...

, new wholesale fruit and vegetable markets opened on Moat Row in 1883, and the pig and cattle trades moved to a new market in Montague Street between 1892 and 1898. The wholesale fish market in Bell Street was opened in 1869 and extended in 1883, while in 1897 a new meat market with an attached slaughterhouse
Slaughterhouse
A slaughterhouse or abattoir is a facility where animals are killed for consumption as food products.Approximately 45-50% of the animal can be turned into edible products...

 was opened in Bradford Street.

Increasing congestion in the markets area, coupled with the demolition of the Fish Market for the construction of the Bull Ring Centre in 1958 and the increasing inadequacy of the Smithfield and City Meat markets, led to post-war plans to develop a new wholesale market complex. The first phase of the current market buildings opened in February 1974.

Current markets

The current market includes a 25300 m² (30,258.5 sq yd) horticultural
Horticulture
Horticulture is the industry and science of plant cultivation including the process of preparing soil for the planting of seeds, tubers, or cuttings. Horticulturists work and conduct research in the disciplines of plant propagation and cultivation, crop production, plant breeding and genetic...

 market, a 3500 m² (4,186 sq yd) meat
Meat
Meat is animal flesh that is used as food. Most often, this means the skeletal muscle and associated fat and other tissues, but it may also describe other edible tissues such as organs and offal...

 market and a 3000 m² (3,588 sq yd) fish
Fish
Fish are a paraphyletic group of organisms that consist of all gill-bearing aquatic vertebrate animals that lack limbs with digits. Included in this definition are the living hagfish, lampreys, and cartilaginous and bony fish, as well as various extinct related groups...

 and poultry
Poultry
Poultry are domesticated birds kept by humans for the purpose of producing eggs, meat, and/or feathers. These most typically are members of the superorder Galloanserae , especially the order Galliformes and the family Anatidae , commonly known as "waterfowl"...

 market. The markets are open from 4am every day apart from Sunday and receive 13,000 customer visits per week.

Proposed move

Birmingham City Council has plans to move the wholesale markets to a new larger site at Witton
Witton, West Midlands
Witton is an inner city area in Birmingham, England, in the metropolitan county of the West Midlands. It was within the ancient parish of Aston in the Hemlingford hundred of the historic county of Warwickshire...

, with the current site in Birmingham City Centre
Birmingham City Centre
Birmingham city centre is the business, retail and leisure hub of Birmingham, England. Following the removal of the Inner Ring Road, the city centre is newly defined as being the area within the Middle Ring Road. Birmingham city centre is undergoing massive redevelopment with the Big City Plan...

 being redeveloped under the Big City Plan.
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