The Ontario Food Terminal

The Ontario Food Terminal opened in 1954 in south Etobicoke, created by the provincial government as a centralized wholesale market where farmers, importers and produce distributors could sell fresh fruit and vegetables directly to grocers, restaurants and other wholesale buyers under one roof rather than through a scattered, less efficient system of individual deals. It operates under the Ontario Food Terminal Board, a Crown agency, rather than as a private business.

An invisible piece of the city's food supply

Though almost entirely unknown to ordinary shoppers, since it isn't open to the general public, the terminal handles a very large share of the fresh produce that eventually reaches grocery stores, restaurants and food markets across Toronto and much of Ontario, operating in the pre-dawn hours when wholesale buyers do most of their purchasing. It remains one of the largest wholesale produce markets in North America, a piece of essential food-supply infrastructure that operates almost entirely out of public view.

Sources

• Ontario Food Terminal — About
• Wikipedia — Ontario Food Terminal

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