Traders of the month

Named after the Italian word for a woodland in which truffles are found, Tartufaia imports truffles from all over Italy and, more recently, Australia. Founded and run by former chef Mario Prati, the stall also sells a wide range of delicious truffle-based products including white truffle oil, truffle honey, truffle butter and truffle brie, all made purely from natural ingredients.

The fruit in McLaren’s Christmas puddings is macerated for two days in brandy, Guinness and the zest and juice of fresh oranges and lemons, before being steamed for eight hours and left to mature for several months. Available in a range of sizes, the puddings are good to go. All you need to do is follow the reheating instructions tucked inside each one.

Flip Dunning’s organic mushroom pâté is handmade to a secret family recipe using freshly picked field, button, chestnut and in-season wild mushrooms. This vegetarian treat works perfectly on toast, or as stuffing for chicken breasts, a spread for a bacon sandwich, or a flavoursome addition to rice, pasta or potatoes. The stall now also sells a vegan version, made using cashew curd cheese.

Wyndham House Poultry joined Borough Market back in February 2000. Their offering of fresh free-range poultry sourced from small, independent producers has since expanded to include chicken wraps and rotisserie, made using fresh produce from fellow traders. During the appropriate seasons, the stand sells turkey, three-bird roasts, haggis, goose eggs and game.

The Parma Ham and Mozzarella Stand showcases products from some of the most sustainable food producers in Italy. The Crouch family, two generations of which are involved in the business, strive for total transparency of supply chain, working directly with producers to source high-quality salume and cheeses including mozzarella di bufala, burrata and ricotta.

Borough Wines is known for its straight-from-the-barrel, wine on tap concept – a wine refill system that’s great for environment and customer alike. Offering interesting wines with real provenance, it champions small, independent winemakers, with ‘natural’ and biodynamic wines featuring heavily. What all suppliers have in common is a real commitment to sustainability.

Founded by brothers Martin and David Cartwright, Cartwright Brothers Vintners Ltd is now run by Martin’s son Richard, who sources a wide range of high-quality wines from around the world, mostly from independent estates. The stall also has a growing range of English wines, spirits, mead and fruit wines.

Darren Brown started experimenting with scallop diving to earn some extra cash while he was in the Royal Navy, which led to the birth of Shellseekers. Found off the Devon coast, the scallops he and his team collect by hand are highly prized. The stall also sells other sustainably caught fish, shellfish, crustaceans and an impressive selection of game, much of it shot by Darren himself.

Mons Cheesemongers source French and Swiss cheeses from specialist regional producers, many of them carefully matured at a facility in St Haon-le-Chatel in the Loire, France. The result is a wide ranging and ever-changing array of spectacular cheese, including mont d’Or and beaufort alpage, which is produced exclusively in the French Alps.

The Trethowan Brothers stall sells a range of artisan cheeses made by a collective of small-batch cheesemakers based in Britain. Two of the cheeses the brothers make themselves: Pitchfork Cheddar and Gorwydd Caerphilly. Both are produced in north Somerset, five miles from the historic town of Cheddar, using raw milk, hand-turned presses and heritage methods.

Change Please is a social enterprise that aims to end homelessness through the power of employment and great tasting coffee. Its profits help people experiencing homelessness by training them to become baristas, supporting them with everything they need to turn their lives around – a job, help with housing, therapy, banking and onward employment opportunities.