A wholesale market is being established in Istanbul, one of the most crowded cities in the world. Studies for the project, which aims to gather all food markets into one location, have also commenced. According to the new project, the markets featuring water and milk products, dry food, meat and cut flowers will be placed in the same area. In the first phase of the project, the vegetable market in Bayrampaşa is planned as the location for the site, but since its location in the city center can cause transportation problems, an alternative site will be carefully considered during the next phases of the project. To begin with, surveys, workshops and conferences will be held to identify potential needs. The site selection and its operation type will be determined after a workshop, which will be held for craftsmen, scientists and local administrative officials. Also, wholesale markets in other countries will be analyzed.

After the survey is conducted, a series of workshops, each of which can host 1,000 participants, will be held. All parties can share their ideas and approaches at a series of conferences. As a final step, collaborative work to find a new site will be conducted as well. It has been planned that all steps of the project including collecting data, conducting investigations, holding workshops and decision making will take nine months.

According to data from the Turkish Statistical Institute (TÜİK), the results acquired from the combined data set of the 2011, 2012 and 2013 Household Budget Surveys show that 23.5 percent of the total consumption expenditure in Turkey was spent by households in Istanbul.