Wholesale Marketing - Wholesaling Trends

Wholesaling Trends

James Marnley Found Wholesale markets develop in a number of stages. They start as general markets, then become more specialized by trading in specific types of product. A later stage is to transact only graded and well packaged produce. A recent trend in Western Europe and the USA is for large retailers to by-pass the wholesale market system. Direct links are created between producers and supermarket chains, often by means of contract farming arrangements or through the use of preferred suppliers. Following the collapse of the iron curtain a large number of markets were developed in Eastern and Central Europe in the 1990s and early 2000s. Examples include markets in Warsaw, Gdansk, Budapest, and Bucharest. In other parts of the world, new markets have been built in Amman, Cairo and Mumbai, among many recent developments. Very few new wholesale markets have been built in western countries in the last decades, although old markets have been relocated to new sites (e.g. the new Covent Garden Market relocated to Nine Elms in London and Rome's new wholesale market, relocated from the centre to the east of the city). Those that already exist have tended to also attract warehouses for integrated food distribution, changing their role to "food centers" (in the USA) and including other non-fresh food products. Wholesale markets still have a role in the marketing of horticultural produce but the traditional fresh meat and fish wholesale markets, particularly those dealing with wholesale live produce, are generally being closed down in major urban centres. In developing countries, changes in work patterns, particularly the employment of women, and the impact of technological innovations in post-harvest handling, food processing and storage, including the use of domestic refrigerators, tends to encourage the development of one-stop shopping at supermarkets, often on a once-a-week basis. The challenge for wholesale markets in such a trading environment is to retain turnover, both by providing new services to supermarkets and by developing services to the non-supermarket trade and the growing hotel and catering sectors.