Delhi’s Azadpur Mandi Vegetable Market

Last week, my friend Paul and I explored Delhi’s Azadpur Mandi vegetable market. We were there gathering information for a food waste research project we’re working on, trying to understand where the food comes from, and what happens to it once it arrives. If you’re interested in learning more about our project, check out our recent blog posts on the MIT Public Service Center website.

Azadpur is the largest wholesale vegetable market in all of Asia. It spans 80 acres in North Delhi, and receives over 700 truckloads of produce every day. We learned that the trucks come from all over India, with some trekking 72 hours from the south to drop off their shipments.

It was chaotic. It was overwhelming. It smelled. And yet it was fascinating.

I’ve included some highlights below.

A man with his cabbages:

Corn shelling:

There were lots of cows, just walking around:

A man selling some peppers:

The lemon district:

These guys thought we were from a magazine:

Traders cleaning up cabbage leaves that were pulled off heads that were shipped:

Hundreds of tons of onions are unloaded from a truck and stored in the market:

Garlic storage:

Buy my peppers please:

Organic waste is thrown in this enclosure to be picked up by dump trucks twice a day. This girl is adding garlic husks to the pile:

Cows lighten the burden on the city waste removal service by eating some of the waste before the trucks show up:

A man hauling some cargo across the market:

A man sells bananas to some people outside the market: