New Covent Garden Market

New Covent Garden Market is the largest wholesale fruit, vegetable, and flower market in the United Kingdom. Located in Nine Elms, London, the Market covers a site of 57 acres (23 ha) and is home to approximately 200 fruit, vegetable, and flower companies. The Market serves 40% of the fruit and vegetables eaten outside of the home in London and provides ingredients to many of London's top restaurants, hotels, schools, prisons, hospitals, and catering businesses.

The Flower Market, which offers an extensive range of flowers, plants, foliages, sundries, and interior decorations from the UK and from around the globe, is visited by 75% of florists in London, many of whom place morning orders and return to restock during the day as needed. The Flower Market wholesalers are open from 04:00 to 10:00 Monday to Saturday and the Fruit & Vegetable Market wholesalers trade from around 00:00 - 06:00 Monday to Saturday.

There is a £5.00 entry fee for visitors driving to the Market, but once inside there is plenty of available parking. The nearest London Underground station is Vauxhall on the Victoria line. Vauxhall also has a railway station, with good connections to Waterloo and Clapham Junction, and a large bus station with buses departing frequently to destinations all across London. The proposed Nine Elms tube station on the Northern line extension to Battersea will serve the market.

The Market is run by a statutory corporation, the Covent Garden Market Authority (CGMA), which reports to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA). The CGMA was set up in 1961 and charged with modernising and overseeing the administration of the vegetable market, which was considered strategically important as a wholesale food and flower market.

The Market opened for the first time on 11 November 1974, construction having started in 1971 on the site of the former Nine Elms Locomotive Works. The Market is so called because it transferred directly from its previous location at Covent Garden in central London.

...
Wikipedia