Project
Making Public Markets visible!

Toronto has more than 130 Public Markets (PM) built from the ground up by strong community champions or key anchor organizations. They embrace diverse models, audiences and mandates that respond to residents’ needs and often deliver programs that address municipal gaps. 

Though long-treasured by city-dwellers as a way to connect to local growers and urban entrepreneurs while surrounded by a festive atmosphere, markets provide entertainment and access to arts, crafts, street food and fresh produce.  Still, the widespread benefits of public markets need to be discovered and appreciated. As such, many public markets exist on the margins.

From the St. Lawrence market, the only municipal market, to seasonal Farmers and Flea markets, to semi-permanent markets like Market 707 or the Ontario Food Terminal (Canada’s only wholesale market), these public markets are drivers of our local economy. These forms of retail are part of the mid-size distribution infrastructure that enables regional supply, inclusive and diverse economies and promote social connections at a neighbourhood level.

 

> Increase education on the role of the Public Market in city building.

> Celebrate Public Markets and the people & businesses involved.

> Promote the various forms of Public Markets our city.

Filling in the Missing Middle for Food Retailing

Thanks, Glen Miller and Spacing Magazine, for writing about this important issue! We look forward to further collaboration and helping more planners, decision-makers and residents understand why we must support public markets.

Photo: Farmers Market at the Ontario Food Terminal, 400 farmers market tenants sell directly, and another 1,500 Ontario farmers sell indirectly through warehouse

1st Toronto Interactive Public Market Map

The International Market Cities Program began working with the Toronto Food Policy Council and Marina Queirolo, lead for the public market initiative, along with the two other pilot project cities: Pittsburgh, PA and Seattle, WA, in March 2020, at the beginning of the COVID-19 crisis. 

In light of the pandemic, the Toronto partners' top priority was advocating for farmers' markets an

We work with Toronto’s intrepid market managers, vendors, city staff and policy-makers to activate the power of markets.

Get in touch ->

Marina Queirolo
Public markets & food systems specialist
mqueirolo@marketcityto.org

Project For Public Spaces' Market Cities Network is a global forum for markets of all kinds and the people committed to their success. We’re honored to join as a Founding Member, a role where we can connect and advance leaders in the public markets field.

Supporting partnership from the Golden Horseshoe Food and Farming Alliance and Hypenotic.

International partners with Project For Public Spaces.

Project partners with City of Toronto, St. Lawrence Market, Greenbelt Markets, Scarborough Farmers Market, and Canadian Farmers Market.

We respectfully acknowledge that the work stewarded by Market City TO takes place on many Indigenous nations' traditional territories.

Tkarón:to has been cared for by the Anishinabeg Nation, the Haudenosaunee Confederacy, the Huron-Wendat, and its current treaty holders, the Mississaugas of the Credit First Nation. Now home to many First Nation, Inuit, and Métis communities, this territory is subject to the Dish With One Spoon Wampum Belt Covenant, an agreement to share and care for the land and resources in the Great Lakes region peacefully. The dish with one spoon reminds people we only have one dish, one mother earth we can take from. Therefore, we should take only what we need, leave something for others, and keep the dish clean. It also demonstrates our collective responsibility to share equally. This area had been a gathering place for Indigenous peoples for centuries before colonization; they hosted the original markets.

The relationship between food, culture, land, and communities informs our work on Toronto public markets. As we work towards collectively reimagining Toronto as a market city and mobilize the partnerships to make it happen, we prioritize finding ways to support Indigenous food sovereignty in their territory. We respectfully acknowledge that the work steward by Market City TO is on traditional territory of many Indigenous Nations.