The rise of supermarkets in Africa since the mid-1990s is transforming the food retail sector. Supermarkets have spread fast in Southern and Eastern Africa, already proliferating beyond middle-class big-city markets into smaller towns and poorer areas. Supplying supermarkets presents both...

During the 1990s transition period in Central and Eastern Europe, the retail sector was privatised and some domestic-capital supermarket chains gradually emerged. Massive inflows of foreign direct investment followed and competitive domestic investments drove a rapid take-off of large-format...

Supermarkets are rapidly penetrating urban food retail in Kenya and spreading well beyond their initially tiny market niche among the urban middle class into the food markets of lower-income groups. Having penetrated processed and staple food markets much earlier and faster than fresh foods,...

Former state-controlled economies (FSCEs) have become the most important destination of global retail chain investments. These economies, which spread from North Africa, across Central and Eastern Europe, to East Asia, include more than one and a half billion consumers and a large share of the...

The supermarket revolution is spreading faster in China than anywhere else in the world. Supermarket sales are growing by 30-40% per year, 2-3 times faster than in other developing regions. This development has been driven by factors shared by other developing countries as well as by...