The rise of supermarkets in Africa, Asia, and Latin America

by Thomas reardon, C. Peter Timmer, Christopher B Barrett and Julio Berdegue

Paper presented to The Rise of Supermarkets in Developing Countries: Opportunities and Challenges for AGrifood Products Suppliers. American Journal of Agricultural Economics Volume 85 Issue 5 Page 1140 - December 2003

Supermarkets are traditionally viewed by development economists, policymakers, and practitioners as the rich world's place to shop. The three regions discussed here have a great majority of the poor on the planet. But supermarkets are no longer just niche players for rich consumers in the capital cities of the countries in these regions. The rapid rise of supermarkets in these regions in the past five to ten years has transformed agrifood markets at different rates and depths across regions and countries. many of those transformations present great challenges -- even exclusion -- for small far,s, and small processing and distribution firms, but also great opportunities. Development models, policies and programs need to adapt to this radical change.

Full paper available at http://www.rimisp.org/getdoc.php?docid=1928