The Malayali Project’s Arjun Manikandan wins three-month trading spot with Mercato Metropolitano

03-Jul-2023 - Last updated on 03-Jul-2023 at 10:14 GMT

The Malayali Project owner Arjun Manikandan has one a three-month rent-free tenure at Mercato Metropolitano’s Ilford-based food market.

He becomes the inaugural winner of Mercato Metropolitano’s dreaM campaign, which aims to discover and support new talent, ideas, projects.

From Ilford, the 26-year-old Manikandan impressed the panel of five industry judges with The Malayali Project, which is ‘inspired by the vibrant culinary culture of Kerala’, and beat 111 other applicants.

As part of the prize, Mercato Metropolitano will be providing Manikandan and his team with access to free consultations to help create a successful and long-lasting business plan, support in sourcing sustainable, local ingredients, as well as all-important branding and marketing advice.

The judges included Andrea Rasca, CEO and founder of Mercato Metropolitano, Luke Jenkins, head of commercial of Mercato Metropolitano, Colleen Amos, from The Amos Bursary, as well as Christina Dean, head of content at London On The Inside, and Kate Howell, head of communications and engagement at Borough Market.

“It was a surreal moment finding out that we won the dreaMM campaign. We felt like a minority in the top 10 finalists, because they’re all amazing, so to know that we are the winners is a really amazing feeling for me,” Manikandan says.

“Being from Ilford myself, it really means a lot to me that this campaign started there and we will be able to be based in the new Ilford sustainable food market, and bring our authentic Kerala cuisine there. Having never run a business before, we don’t know what to expect, but we know that the MM team will be supporting us all the way and that gives me confidence to say, ‘okay, let’s do this!”

Rasca added: “It has been such a joy to launch our dreaMM campaign and to see so many enthusiastic dreaMMers share their dreams with us. Our panellists, including myself, were blown away by Arjun’s passion to bring authentic Kerala cuisine to our markets, and after achieving a perfect score, we knew we had to name him our winner. We can’t wait to see what he cooks up in our new sustainable community market in Ilford when it opens.”