- Students from 12 London primary schools sold school-grown fruit and veg at iconic market
- All proceeds will be donated to redistribution charity Plan Zheroes, tackling food poverty
The Young Marketeers Summer Market Day returned to Borough Market on Thursday 3 July 2025, with 60 pupils from 12 London primary schools setting out their stalls in one of the capital’s most iconic food markets. The children sold a selection of fruit and vegetables they had grown from seed in their school gardens, raising a total of £730.08 for Borough Market’s food-waste charity partner, Plan Zheroes.
The Young Marketeers programme, now in its 14th year, is a partnership between charity School Food Matters and Borough Market, itself a charitable trust. Through the programme, pupils not only learn how to grow fresh seasonal food, but they also gain first-hand experience of running a business and receive expert training from Borough Market’s traders on how to be confident and engage customers. The children joined traders such as Hickson & Daughter, Raya and Northfield Farm in March to learn what it takes to be a brilliant market operator.
This summer’s budding market traders offered up an impressive homegrown harvest, including beetroot, French beans, lettuce, salad leaves, peas, carrots and Chinese radishes, all nurtured by the children in their school gardens.
learned how to care for their crops with former Blue Peter gardener and horticultural expert Chris Collins. Each school also received a visit from a School Food Matters gardener to check on progress and give growing advice.
This year’s Summer Market Day continued to support the food redistribution charity Plan Zheroes. Since 2014, Plan Zheroes has been collecting surplus food from Borough Market’s traders and delivering it to charities and community groups across London. In that time the partnership has repurposed over 151,000kg of food and provided 360,594 meals for Londoners, with their volunteers visiting the Market six days a week.