Mercato Metropolitano
Mercato Metropolitano is the first sustainable community market with an Italian soul
Mercato Metropolitano, centrally located in London's south east Elephant & Castle, is the city’s first sustainable community market focused on revitalizing neighbourhoods and protecting the environment. The market has incubated more than 48 food and beverage businesses, a delicatessen with sustainably sourced products from local farmers and artisans, a unique cinema experience, a communal kitchen and several circular economy concepts including a Bavarian micro-brewery, a hydroponics farm, a mushroom garden from spent coffee grounds and a vertical garden in a double decker bus to name a few. MM, launched in 2016, attracts up to 60,000 people a week to a part of the city that previously had little footfall. It aims to teach urban dwellers that they can support their local and rural communities while at the same time protecting the environment by focusing on what they eat and how they eat.16 GoodGymers have supported Mercato Metropolitano with 6 tasks.
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Previous sessions
Spooktacular Carving
Saturday 26th October 2019
Written by Emma
Congratulations to Susie for completing her first mission! Looking forward to seeing you at some group runs soon!
Once we all arrived we were shown how to prepare the pumpkins for carving. Cutting the top off and emptying them of their seeds and pulp. Now we were ready! After the children got their faces painted (lots of Batmans and witches) they came to the GoodGym pumpkin carving table to draw their designs for us. We followed their designs very careful making sure to perfectly capture the exact expressions of each of the pumpkins. Once they were done the children named their pumpkins and took them home to put on display.
After two hours of cutting and naming pumpkins we cleared up and had our group photo before Vicky came with pizzas for everyone! Yum yum!
Knife to see you, to see you slice!
Sunday 15th September 2019
Written by Dom Tooze (he/him)
Today, a group of fantastic humans went to help out with a community lunch at Mercato Metropolitano.
They have been running free lunch clubs and activities for local families over the summer holidays which have been incredibly well attended. They wanted to organise this lunch to bring people together, make friends, and eat good food.
On arriving at the task, we helped set up some stations with boards, knives, induction hobs and surplus veggies from other organisations.
Under the expert guidance of executive chef Gabriele, we (and some other lovely volunteers) chopped, diced and peeled to prepare loads of amazing ribollita for the families coming. There were challenges (including varied approaches to chopping and some issues with the power), but thanks to the expertise and patience of all involved, we crossed these hurdles and learned from them.
After a few hours, it was time! The families came, and were lapping up the lovely food. Everyone was very excited about Mercato Metropolitano, and how GoodGym had gotten involved! All who attended found the experience educational, and even got to sample the lovely dish!
Well done to all who came, particularly those from further away, and newcomers Sarah and Hannah! Thanks again to Gabriele, Vicki, and all those who invited us to be part of their wonderful third birthday!
