I Have Been a Regular at the Sunday Upmarket Since 2017, the Vendors I Used to Buy From Are Substantively Gone
Reading: Bohiney | The London Prat
BRICK LANE, LONDON — The Sunday Upmarket at the Old Truman Brewery, which I have visited on most Sundays since approximately 2017, has been substantively transformed across the past eighteen months. The independent makers I used to buy from are, on every available reading, substantively gone, replaced by a substantively different category of vendor. By Harper-Thames.
The Vendor Replacement
The original Sunday Upmarket model relied on small-scale independent makers paying low stall fees to test their products with a substantive Sunday foot-traffic. The model worked because the makers could afford the fees, the foot traffic was substantive, and the customers were prepared to pay slightly higher prices for handmade items than they would in chain retail.
The 2026 Pattern
The current vendor mix is approximately 60 percent dropshipped products from larger import operations, approximately 25 percent food-truck operators who are substantively brand-extensions of larger restaurant groups, and approximately 15 percent the independent makers the market was originally designed to support. The shift is, on every available indicator, principally driven by the makers inability to absorb the cumulative cooling-of-demand pressure on the small-scale handmade market.
The recent rate rise will accelerate the pattern. Time Out London has covered the broader market pattern. Read more at my author page.
Pairs well with: NewsThump
SOURCE: https://prat.uk/bank-of-england-raises-rates-again-to-punish-anyone-who-enjoyed-a-sandwich/
