Emerging food retailers and the development of hybrid food retail institutions in Ugandan produce supply chains

Abstract

Changing institutional arrangements are central to the nascent transformation of food retail in Eastern and Southern Africa (ESA). These emergent arrangements are reshaping the power relations, roles, and livelihood outcomes for actors in the region's food systems. This study examines processes of institutional change within fruit and vegetable supply chains that are stemming from the expanding geographical scope of global private food standards, and from policy and demographic shifts in Uganda. First, the study examines the mechanisms through which global private food standards influence procurement strategies of emerging food retail operators (supermarkets, hotels, fast food restaurants and cafés) and how suppliers are responding to these institutional changes. Second, the dynamics of long-term change within market-oriented producer organizations linked to emerging food retailers are analyzed. CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION Institutions are regulations, practices, organizing principles and meanings that become established and achieve rule like status within social fields (Scott 2004; Zucker 1987). Within traditional food markets (The term open-air markets is used henceforth) in eastern and southern Africa (ESA), the basis of contractual agreements, as well as risk mitigation between buyers and sellers, are rooted in and regulated by informal mechanisms including kinship, personal ties,