Food shopping worldwide: localised idiosyncrasies
Despite globalisation catching the world by storm for the past no one knows how long, shopping still has very many territorial distinct features. Sometimes, the very details of globalisation, such as an international chain, can come to be appropriated. We will cover that further on. This is not all too inaccurate. The motto of international marketing is essentially "standardize where you can, adapt where you have to"; some level of adaptation is unavoidable, so regional differences are inescapable, even in the same country. Mind you, we are not talking about some folks favoring organic health food in contrast to other food or something of that sort. Rather, we fancy seeing how grocery shopping itself is different from nation to nation. So get your food coupons, as we are ready to leave on a journey worldwide. We will look at three countries and consider what kind of places people shop in.
The United Kingdom feels rather normal as a whole regarding food shopping. Granted, the gradual move from supermarkets to convenience stores has been singular, but apart from that everything remains rather ordinary. One element that stands apart as unusual is Iceland Foods. At first glance an ordinary supermarket, it is as a matter of fact almost completely stocked with frozen food. This is not to remark on whether it ought to be on an unhealthy food list or not, that is beyond the point. We are just identifying the singular position of this market, with few counterparts to be discovered in a list of grocery market chains.
The French market looks quite American in a few respects. You might imagine that there can be no two things that are as divergent as America and France, but there you have it. The key justification for this assessment on our part is the distinct love the French people have for big supermarkets or hypermarkets. I mean, merely have a look at the largest grocery retailers, such as those of the Groupe Casino as well as others, and you will see that many of their stores are hypermarkets. Perhaps they have exceptional prices, possibly they are just nice places, but the supersize thinking is incredible.
Envision an American firm that establishes a subsidiary of grocery stores in Japan. Then, that subsidiary ends up being massively profitable and trendy, and ends up growing aggressively. Indeed, it thrives to the extent where it gains liberty of its parent enterprise and in turn buys its out. This is the story of Seven & I Holdings Co. The exceptional rise of its convenience store chain in Japan points to the fascinating nature of the market, and this was perhaps the top story in food trade news for some time. The thing with operating convenience stores which number in tens of thousands is having a good distribution network and working with the best wholesale grocery distributor businesses. In Japan, this is accomplished through just-in-time techniques, with recurrent deliveries.
