MM Factory will be the anchor tenant of Elephant Park, a £2.3bn mixed-use regeneration project run in partnership between Southwark Council and property company Lendlease.

It will feature an urban production centre, with grains milled on-site and worked in to bakery, patisserie and pasta products that will supply its other markets.

Visitors will be able to watch the production, learn about the ingredients, and dine at ‘micro restaurants’ and sustainable street food concepts on-site.

MM Factory and Lendlease will also run cooking classes and offer apprenticeships for members of the local community.

Mercato Metropolitano’s existing food market in Elephant and Castle, which opened in 2016, will remain open as separate venture.

“The Mercato Metropolitano ecosystem is all about community, a place for an ongoing dialogue between local people, farmers, chefs, retailer and artists, and we cannot think of a better place to build upon this community with a new approach to urban retail than Elephant Park,” says Andrea Rasca, founder of Mercato Metropolitano.

Mercato Metropolitano was founded in Milan in 2015 and ran a site in Turin until 2016. It opened in London in 2016 following the closure of both the Italian markets.