If there may have been a time when business relationships between and micro-enterprises and what can be described as the country’s blue ribbon business establishments, notably, ‘brand name’ supermarkets, changing consumer habits have begun to shove that propensity behind us. Changing consumer behaviour have triggered innovations in the business culture that have resulted in the proliferation of new kinds of partnerships between small, even micro-vendors and most of the country’s upmarket food distribution establishments that would appear to be working to their mutual advantage.
Time was when the roles of the fruit and vegetable vendors and the ‘brand name’ food distributors existed on separate plains. If your mission was to ‘shop’ fruits and vegetables you had to brave the bustle and crush of the municipal markets where the vendors bawled their offerings in your ears to get what you wanted. Supermarkets offer a more rarified, environment, characterized, in large measure, by sealed and canned containers and giant coolers of perishables all assembled in a reassuring shopping environment.