The Department of Climate Action, Food and Rural Agenda of the Generalitat de Catalunya has granted the Mercat Carni-Ramader i Avicola de Barcelona recognition as a market of reference. Specifically, the resolution of the Catalan administration certifies the entity as a benchmark in the Catalan territory for products such as white pork, beef and white and yellow eggs, among others.
The institution will thus become part of the national register of reference shops of the State made up of those shops of agricultural products which, by the type of information they supply and by the suitability and quality of the work procedures they use, provide information of ‘interest in improving the operation and transparency of the shops and markets, as well as to comply with European regulations regarding the transmission of information on prices.
The Meat Market is the third Catalan market to obtain this recognition, along with the Reus and Mercolleida Market, and the eighth in the State as a whole. Obtaining this status strengthens the
influence of the Barcelona Meat-Ramader and Poultry Market and the significance of its decisions on the trends in the meat sector, one of the main industrial sectors in Catalonia.
An institution that unites tradition and future
Headquartered in Barcelona’s Llotja de Mar, the Barcelona Meat-Livestock and Poultry Market brings together 178 members – traders, industrialists, commercial agents and other possible operators related to the meat, livestock and poultry sectors – for the realization of the mercantile contracting operations in a regime of free competition of supply and demand for livestock and poultry products.
At the same time, the Meat Market also has price commissions to calculate the prices recorded in the beef, pork and egg sectors for distribution in the market and to prepare a sheet of indicative prices which is widely disseminated, not only within Catalonia and the rest of Spain but also in countries such as France, Germany, Holland, Italy and Portugal.
The Meat Market has its origins in the 19th century when the Pork Market was installed in Pla de Palau. In 1972, a group of a group of traders, industrialists and agents of the meat and livestock sector started operations near the Barcelona Chamber of Commerce in order to locate the Meat Market in the historic Saló de Contractacions of the Llotja de Mar, current headquarters of the organization.
This action was well received by the traders in the sector, who at the time were meeting in Les Rambles. Faced with the rise of the Market, in 1978 the Barcelona Chamber of Commerce approved the first Statutes of the Barcelona Meat-Ramader Market, which gave the institution its own legal personality.
In 1997, at the request of the Catalan Poultry Federation, the Association
of Egg Producers of Catalonia and the Catalan Association of Egg and Ovoproduct Wholesalers, the Meat-Ramader Market was expanded to also accommodate the poultry sector.
Currently, the Barcelona Meat-Ramader and Poultry Market sessions take place in the Saló dels Cónsols of the Llotja de Mar de Barcelona, every Tuesday from 5 to 8 p.m.
