Roger Barton is one of Britain’s most charismatic market traders. He’s worked in London’s Billingsgate Fish Market for fifty-five years. His time in the market has earned him a fortune, a couple of criminal convictions and the nickname ‘The Bastard of Billingsgate’. He’s a ruthless trader, who worships the pound note and hates coming second.
Roger’s off to follow a dream of visiting the world’s greatest food markets: New Fulton Fish Market in New York, where a billion dollars of trade is done each year; Central de Abasto in Mexico City, the world’s largest food market, where 400,000 people come each day to earn a living; and Delhi’s Azadpur market, the largest fruit and veg market in Asia.
But he’s not going as a tourist. Roger knows the only way to get under the skin of a market is to do a bit of business there. The producers have given him a fighting fund to trade with. Pitting himself against some of the world’s sharpest traders, can Roger make a few quid, in another man’s land?
Around the world markets remain the beating heart of the greatest cities on the planet. Markets tell you the story of a city. They are a mainline into commerce and culture at every level of society, from the poorest slum dog to the fattest fat cat. Feeding whole cities and beyond, fortunes can be won and lost overnight; this is capitalism in its rawest form. Operating at night, dealing in cash and men-only, markets are closed and hostile worlds, no places for newcomers – especially those who are looking to muscle in on the customers.
Episode One: New York
The City That Never Sleeps is one of the richest on our planet. But cross the Harlem River from Manhattan and you enter the Bronx - a different world. At its southern tip is the district of Hunt’s Point, home to New Fulton Fish Market, the biggest and roughest fish market in America.
New Fulton shifts nearly 100,000 tonnes of fish per year, four times as much at London’s Billingsgate. Roger’s not the only newcomer here. You can tell the story of New York from the faces under this roof. The Italians and Jews have Fulton’s trading floor tied-up. The customers come from further afield. The Chinese and Japanese are big buyers, but not as big as the Koreans who make up 50 per cent of the customer base. Roger may know fish, but if he’s going to make a dollar here, he’s going to have to understand the customer’s needs.
Episode Two: Mexico City
Source: World's Greatest Food Markets
Billingsgate fish merchant Roger Barton heads to Mexico City’s Central de Abasto, the largest food market on the planet. Feeding Mexico City, a megacity with a population of 21 million people, 400,000 Mexicans make a living from this market everyday. Can one Englishman join them and do the same?
So big, it’s a city within a city. 325 hectares in size, with 12,000 porters shifting 30,000 tonnes of produce daily. But what fruit and veg should a fish merchant sell, to get a slice of the action? Roger needs good advice, and heads straight to the top. Don Cesar is the market’s king of chillies, and has a reputation even more fearsome than Roger’s. As a market where ‘gentlemanly behaviour’ does not apply, he’s more than pleased to welcome Roger – a man with a fistful of dollars, but no experience in fruit and veg - to compete against him and his fellow traders.
Roger knows the only way to understand a market and earn respect is to work from the bottom up, and does a day’s hard labour unloading twenty tonnes of cucumbers, and pulling two tonnes of produce around the market as a porter.
Roger’s timing is good – he’s here for the busiest day of the market calendar: Day of the Dead, a traditional Mexican festival to remember loved ones who’ve died. 500,000 people are expected in the market, all after one thing: flowers. Whilst Roger gets hold of flowers, his grasp of the language is less firm, and sales are poor. But an invite by a customer to observe Day of the Dead opens Roger’s eyes to a different side of Mexico, and open’s ours to a different side of Roger.
Discovering mexico
Global Roaming: Mexico
Source: World's Greatest Food Markets
Delhi is a modern megacity, home to 22 million people. A city of this size needs a market to match, and Azadpur Mandi, Asia’s largest fruit and veg market, is as big as they come. It doesn’t just feed Delhi, but provides food for the whole of India.
But Roger Barton’s never been east of Essex, and this is a different world. Upon arrival he confronts a market sewn up by powerful middlemen, age-old family businesses, and a trading system run on trust and credit. Roger is undeterred – there’s one thing in his favour: punters, and thousands of them. Azadpur is a thriving market, reminding Roger of what Billingsgate was when he started out sixty years ago. As a newcomer, Roger’s not alone here; in Azadpur’s informal trading culture newcomers arrive every day in search of a leg up in life.
Azadpur is a mini-India. Produce flows in here from right across the country. In its wake the people follow. Urban to rural migration is transforming the nation, and for many the first destination is Azadpur. All religions, castes and creeds are here, from each and every state in India. All are united by one thing: work.
Roger’s timing is good. One of the year’s biggest Hindu festivals is around the corner, and there’s one item in the market more in demand than any other: ber fruit. Roger competes at auction to secure his stock at the best price, before decamping outside central Delhi’s most popular Hindu temple. During a lull in sales, Roger heads inside. For a man who has only ever worshipped the pound note, the experience is a profound one. 
World's Greatest Food Markets is on Thursdays, 7.30pm on SBS, or catch up on .
Source: World's Greatest Food Markets
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