The supermarket’s last frontier
India says it will open up to foreign retailers. Battles loom, commercial and political
“SIX”, mutters the owner of Standard Broilers as he slips his hand out of a dead chicken and counts half a dozen mucky eggs from a pile into a bag in exchange for 21 rupees (40 cents). At the back of his reeking street stall, a cage full of half-alive birds watch. Food shopping in India is not a precious affair, even in Bandra, a posh suburb of Mumbai. German cars and $100 highlights are common here, but supermarkets are nowhere to be seen.
This article appeared in the Business section of the print edition under the headline “The supermarket’s last frontier”
From the December 3rd 2011 edition
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