Making Public Markets visible!
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 and fresh food markets to be declared essential services by the City. 

During that time, thanks to the support of the University of Toronto Scarborough Feeding City Lab, we were able to collect baseline data on the public market system through meetings and interviews with key players in local food policy; surveying of markets; and mapping the public markets along with other data layers including wards, the subway system, population density, walking distance to markets, priority neighbourhood and business improvement areas, and grocery stores to identify gaps and opportunities for public markets. This 2019 data formed the basis for the first International report and public market interactive map,

 

https://aws-website-ppsimages-na05y.s3.amazonaws.com/qgis2web_2020_10_16-13_16_22_409542/index.html#11/43.7184/-79.3299

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