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

在过去十年中，全球北方的连锁超市扩展到了全球南方的国家。特别是那些实现了经济增长进程的国家- -这一进程产生了越来越大的市场潜力- -是这种扩张的目标。一个非常年轻的趋势是在南半球发展全国性的连锁超市；对它们的时空扩展规律进行了初步研究。一些研究分析了连锁超市整合对农业生产的影响。但到目前为止，人们对农产品采购制度以及农产品与超市之间中介机构的发展情况了解甚少。特别是对于新鲜产品（蔬菜、水果），由于这些国家的基础设施限制，开发这些系统具有挑战性。计划中的项目将根据肯尼亚和坦桑尼亚的个案研究，分析国家连锁超市的时空扩张过程与新鲜产品采购系统/中介机构的发展之间的相互依存关系。

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.