Exhibition 'Alimentar Barcelona. City, supply and health '

Feeding the population has always been a concern for cities. It has been a decisive key in their relationship with the territories, in the evolution over the centuries of technologies to obtain food products and in the conditions in which men and women have been able to nourish themselves and sustain life. Ensuring food supply and security was one of the main occupations of the Consell de Cent, the municipal institution of Barcelona created in 1249, from its beginnings. Since then, the city government has struggled to ensure the supply and quality of food, either because it has had direct competition with it, or because it has acted in a subsidiary manner, or because it has sought alternatives to insufficient action. of other authorities. The intervention of the municipal government comes to this day, with Mercabarna, a large pantry in Barcelona and the western Mediterranean, and with an active network of municipal markets. This long history of decisive municipal involvement in food supply is a historical singularity of Barcelona that does not occur in a way comparable to most European metropolises.