As a young boy I used to accompany my dad for day to day vegetable and groceries shopping, to local market, “bazaar” in the area. We lived in a suburb in Kolkata, India. The market comprised of small shops where you would get all your daily needs starting from fruits and vegetable, meat, fish to clothes and all others such as soaps and detergents and shoes. The market would start operating very early around 6am in the morning and most of the shops selling vegetable and meat would close by around 12 noon and the others would stay open till late afternoon.
The local market consisted of small merchants and many were producers themselves. All the vegetable farmers would get up early in the morning and pick up all vegetables from their farm, pack them in a basket, catch a train, travel an hour or two and reach the market. Once all their produce were sold they went back home and would repeat it the next day. There was no facility for refrigeration and packaging and the concept of genetic modification or pressure to increase productivity was unheard of. The only merchants who were not producers themselves were products that needed manufacturing such as soaps, cooking oils, clothing etc.
The good thing about it was, there was no middle man, no chemicals, fresh produce and competitive pricing. Probably the most efficient marketplace that one can think today. Probably the only drawback was that there was a bit of wastage and there was no place to store things in case it wasn’t sold on that day.
Emergence of the middle man, stockists
As time passed, concepts of productivity, efficiency and reduce wastage gave rise to packaging, refrigeration and mass procurement. Large corporations, private and government, who had financial muscle, stepped in and set up large networks for procurement's and storage. That is when the concept of middle men started. Then it formed a clear distinction between primary fruit and vegetable growers /producers, food processors and sellers. The primary producers were no longer the sellers.
It was good for the producers as they didn’t have to worry about traveling / selling and could focus on production only. The procurers would buy all goods from the producers, stock it and distribute / sell them at a margin. Over a period of time the producers lost touch of the markets and buyers and the stockists and sellers became powerful and started controlling the market. Their buying power enabled them to control the market and the procurement price too.
As the market shifted from producer / buyer to distribution model, the end customer got further away from producers and eventually were not too keen to know who were producing and the quality of these products.
The question remained – is it the market model we always wanted?
Realization and after effects
As we get more socially aware of the effects of over commercialization and chemicals added in our food products, we have started asking questions such as, Are packaged / processed food good for our health? Should we be consuming more fresh produce? Who is this vegetable producer? What chemicals were used for producing this food product?
All these questions were directed to the middle men and they had no clue.
This gave rise to the “organic” movement and we wanted to know who the producers were. We want to know what chemicals were used, we want to know if the produce was genetically modified or simply know who the food farmer was who produced your vegetables and meat.Are we going back to where we started?
As the movement grew in size, a large percentage of the market wanted to buy local and know who the producers were. Many commercial organisations and co-operatives identified this as an opportunity and have come up with the concept of joining producers with end consumers. With the evolution of online market places for fresh produce, the age old concept of “bazaar” or a “souk” is getting a great boost.
As a new trend, to gain the confidence of consumers, large supermarket chains have featured farmers and producers to be part of their advertising campaigns. The movement is catching on. In my opinion, it will be a bit of challenge to move back in time, however, there is enough sign to suggest that we are definitely adapting those concepts. The role of middle men is getting narrower and lesser of importance.
Partha Mazumdar is the founder and designer of https://www.verticalbricks.com.au an online property platform. He has interest in changing market behavior and economics.
The good thing about it was, there was no middle man, no chemicals, fresh produce and competitive pricing. Probably the most efficient marketplace that one can think today. Probably the only drawback was that there was a bit of wastage and there was no place to store things in case it wasn’t sold on that day.
Emergence of the middle man, stockists
As time passed, concepts of productivity, efficiency and reduce wastage gave rise to packaging, refrigeration and mass procurement. Large corporations, private and government, who had financial muscle, stepped in and set up large networks for procurement's and storage. That is when the concept of middle men started. Then it formed a clear distinction between primary fruit and vegetable growers /producers, food processors and sellers. The primary producers were no longer the sellers.
It was good for the producers as they didn’t have to worry about traveling / selling and could focus on production only. The procurers would buy all goods from the producers, stock it and distribute / sell them at a margin. Over a period of time the producers lost touch of the markets and buyers and the stockists and sellers became powerful and started controlling the market. Their buying power enabled them to control the market and the procurement price too.
As the market shifted from producer / buyer to distribution model, the end customer got further away from producers and eventually were not too keen to know who were producing and the quality of these products.
The question remained – is it the market model we always wanted?
Realization and after effects
As we get more socially aware of the effects of over commercialization and chemicals added in our food products, we have started asking questions such as, Are packaged / processed food good for our health? Should we be consuming more fresh produce? Who is this vegetable producer? What chemicals were used for producing this food product?
All these questions were directed to the middle men and they had no clue.
This gave rise to the “organic” movement and we wanted to know who the producers were. We want to know what chemicals were used, we want to know if the produce was genetically modified or simply know who the food farmer was who produced your vegetables and meat.Are we going back to where we started?
As the movement grew in size, a large percentage of the market wanted to buy local and know who the producers were. Many commercial organisations and co-operatives identified this as an opportunity and have come up with the concept of joining producers with end consumers. With the evolution of online market places for fresh produce, the age old concept of “bazaar” or a “souk” is getting a great boost.
As a new trend, to gain the confidence of consumers, large supermarket chains have featured farmers and producers to be part of their advertising campaigns. The movement is catching on. In my opinion, it will be a bit of challenge to move back in time, however, there is enough sign to suggest that we are definitely adapting those concepts. The role of middle men is getting narrower and lesser of importance.
Partha Mazumdar is the founder and designer of https://www.verticalbricks.com.au an online property platform. He has interest in changing market behavior and economics.
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