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One of the Biggest Market in Europe, Mercado de la Ribera

  • Writer: LAS Group
    LAS Group
  • Oct 16, 2018
  • 4 min read

Updated: Dec 17, 2018

By Irati Kim in Bilbao

(Oct, 16, 2018)


According to the UN’s Sustainable development Goals, 12th goal is about ‘Responsible consumption and production’. This goal is about ensuring sustainable consumption and production patterns(UNDP, Retrieved 12 March 2018). The sustainable products defined by Frank-Martin, they are products that provide environment, social and economic benefits while protecting public health and environment over their whole life cycle, from the extraction of raw materials until the final disposal. In Bilbao, there is a traditional market highly relevant to the 12th goal.



12 Responsible consumption and production:

Ensure sustainable consumption and production patterns.


Text and photo Courtesy of United Nations (un.org).


When you are hungry, what are you doing? Some people are going to restaurant to eat something. And other people are making food at their home. If you are cooking at the home, where do you go to buy food ingredients for your cook? Maybe people are usually going to the supermarket to buy some ingredients. Also, some people are going to the traditional market to purchase fresh food. And in the Bilbao, there is a big traditional market nearby the river Nervion where you can eat something at the restaurant or buy fresh meat, fish, vegetable and fruit.

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A shop in 'Mercado de la Ribera' -Photo by Pablo Lee


When you enter the central entrance of the building, you can see various shops around you on both side. The market has 3 floors with 186 shops. People can buy sea food products like fish (or frozen fish) and other kind of seafood at the ground floor. First floor is consisted of butcher shops and they sell various meat. Visitors can see chicken, pork and other kinds of meat and buy what you want. At the second floor, you can purchase some fruit and vegetables like apple, orange and so on. In these days, Mercado de la Ribera is remodeled so you can enjoy a variety of foods like pintxos at the gourmet market or some bars. At the end of the ground floor, there is a restaurant that people can eat delicious food with beautiful scene of the Bilbao.


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Soraya Saiz(25, officer of tourism center) helping tourist -Photo by Pablo Lee

We want to know more about Mercado de la Ribera but unfortunately, they don’t have information center at the Abando. So we visited to the tourism center and met Soraya Saiz(25, officer of tourism center). She recommended us to go the market because “Mercado de la Ribera has a lot of product. All the products are fresh and they take direct from the local.” Also she talked about advantage of using La Ribera. “For example, if you go to the supermarket on the Monday, they don’t have fresh fish but in here, you can get all the fresh product. The advantage is that you have all fresh product in the same area like fish, vegetable and meat.”


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The beautiful glass of 'Mercado de la Ribera' -Photo by Pablo Lee


Citizen of Bilbao can purchase fresh foods from Mercado de la Ribera. Then when did this market exist and supply fresh things to the people? According to the Bilbao Council’s Website(www.bilbao.eus/), this market was established in the 14th century as an important socio-economic network. The architect Pedro Ispizua designed and build the market in 1929. The market built by art deco style, which is combining with glass windows, ornaments, lattices and stone carvings. The translucent window makes the building get the natural light from the sun.

To become a restricted regional market for customers in the Old Quarter and Bilbao La Vieja, la Ribera decided to stop supplying wholesale to the region in 1971. This decision made the market’s sale decreased. But after big flood in the 1983, market has a remodeling and new decoration of the structure made them to get more shops in the building. In 1990, it finally became the most complete municipal food market in the Bilbao and get the fame of the most biggest market in the Europe by the Guinnes Book. In mid of the 2009, there was one more refurbishment work to renewing its interior and exterior.


Apart from its diverse food and gorgeous appearance, there is also a distinctive feature of this market. As I mentioned above, Mercado de la Ribera was listed on the Guiness book of Records as the largest city covered market in Europe in 1990. Its area is 10,000 square meters. It also has the number of merchants and stalls. According to the pamphlet of market, they have about 100 shops at the building(exactly 97 stalls).



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People are looking and shopping at the market -Photo by Pablo Lee


In Bilbao, there are many supermarkets such as Mercadona, BM and Simply. Especially Basque country, this region has its own branded supermarket named ‘Eroski’. People buy things what they need at the supermarket easily. However, as for her(Saiz) word, they sell things out of the Bilbao.

But at the Mercado de la Ribera, they only sell things from Bilbao. And this aspect induces people to come market. Also, people live near the Bilbao come here to buy things, she said. Consumption of local commodities increases the income of small business owners, which contributes to revitalize the local economy. In other words, Market activity through local specialty products has enabled steady economic activity.



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Location of Mercado de la Ribera- Photo courtesy of Google Maps

Do you have any plans tonight? Maybe Ms. Saiz has a good idea. She said that you can find the best fish with the best price in this market. So how about going to Mercado de La Ribera and buy some fresh food and have a great dinner today? Or why don't you have dinner with a beautiful view of Bilbao river.

If you don't want to go out, then visit the website (https://www.mercadodelaribera.net/). Nowadays, the market serve online shop so you can buy fresh meats, fishes, fruits and vegetables at your home by several clicks.

The table under the article is brief information about Mercado de la Ribera.


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