Company: Movement. Deal, and Drink – Book

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.

Lumbung Kios are exhibiting in Economics the Blockbuster as part of Manchester International Festival. They are a global network of artists forging a self-driven, sustainable economic model for selling their work, and provide merchandise with a purpose.