Company: Movements, Deals and Drinks
www.companydrinks.info
A project by Myvillages which links east London’s history of ‘going down to Kent’ the to set up a community drinks-making enterprise.
Between the early 1800’s and the 1950’s, up to 250,000 working-class east Londoners
– mainly women and children – would leave the city each summer for temporary seasonal work harvesting fruit and hops in Kent. This ‘working holiday’ in the countryside offered income, fresh air and temporary independence from city life.
Company. Movements, Deals and Drinks revisits the hop picking history of London’s East End and connects and reconnects different communities, places and processes involved: land, agriculture, harvest, processing and consuming. The long-term objective is to establish a new cultural and economic enterprise which incorporates values and aspects from the “old hop-picking days” but allows for roles, shares and potentials to be altered.
In 2015 Company Drinks registered as a Community Interest Company and offers a year-round public programme across the London Borough of Barking and Dagenham, including picking trips, processing workshops, bottling and branding sessions, trading outlets, bars and social and cultural events.
Follow us on Facebook and Twitter
Company: Movements, Deals and Drinks is commissioned by Create London and is the winner of the 2014 Create Art Award.
