Wholesale Fresh Fruits & Vegetables Markets and Food Distribution in Turkey: New Strategies for Old Functions. The new Food Clusters

The functions of wholesale markets considered in the economics and management literature include physical functions (gathering food products in a single hub helping the distribution of flows from scattered sources, storage, grading, and delivery) and economic functions (favoring stakeholders’ information and competition, banking)

As we look to the future of Spanish Mercabarna (www.mercarbarna.es) alliance with Smart Growth and from a strategic point of view to have PPP with the major metropolitan municipality in Turkey, our consultants suggests the creation of the concept of “food hub”, since this concept is the most efficient in terms of global business models for wholesale markets.

• MARKETS, Fruit and Vegetables; Fish and seafood; and Plants and Flowers.
• STRUCTURAL ELEMENTS, as Food Waste Collecting and Recycling Plant, Telecommunication Network, etc.
• COMPLEMENTARY ACTIVITY ZONE (CAZ) consisting of:

Added Value Industry and Services, as Quality Control Labs, Warehouses, Logistic Services, Cold Storage, etc.

Support Facilities, as Gas Station, Commercial Area, etc.

At Smart Growth, we are very grateful to Mercabarna and their thoughtful insight for the way in which they have brought this know-how, the experience and the technical and human resources to the creation of food clusters to our portfolio of partnership investment. We hope this partnership will continue for many generations, fostering social, economic and professional exchanges.