Food Retail in Developing Countries

Modern food retail outlets (convenience stores, supermarkets and hypermarkets) have long dominated food sales in high income countries. Since 1990 there has been a rapid expansion of these formats in low and middle income countries beginning in Latin America and then in East and Southeast Asia. This expansion has generally begun with targeting high income urban consumers before diversifying their target markets to include more diverse consumers and expanding geographically. The concentration of modern retail in selling packaged, processed foods has been successful but there has been some limits on their ability to penetrate local fresh produce sales, particularly in Southeast Asia.