How are vegetables and fruits delivered to supermarkets in the Global South? The interrelation between the expansion of supermarket-chains and the development of procurement systems / intermediaries for fresh products

• Applicant: Professor Dr. Elmar Kulke
• Subject Area: Human Geography
• Term: from 2016 to 2021
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 319110025

Supermarket-chains from the Global North expanded to countries of the Global South during the last decade. Especially those countries which realised an economic growth process - which generated an increasing market potential - were targets of this expansion. A very young trend is the development of national supermarket-chains in the Global South; there are some preliminary results concerning their spatial and temporal expansion patterns. And several studies have analysed the impact on agricultural production based on the integration in supermarket-chains. But up to now there is very limited knowledge about the procurement system and the development of intermediaries between agricultural production and the supermarkets. Especially for fresh products (vegetables, fruits) it is challenging to develop these systems, because of the infrastructural limitations in these countries. The planned project will analyse the interdependencies between the spatial-temporal expansion process of national supermarket-chains and the development of procurement systems/intermediaries for fresh products based on case studies in Kenya and Tanzania.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants