Visit any of the high-profile supermarkets in Guyana these days and you are almost certain to find their Chillers stuffed with pleasingly presented packages of vegetables, transformed by the manner in which they are turned out, designed to catch the eye of the shopper who might well be inclined to opt for dropping well-presented vegetables into their shopping carts as a kind of try out exercise. Afterwards they discover that there is life beyond ‘doing’ the municipal market. Fresh-from-the-farm vegetables, assorted and assembled in Supermarket Chillers, have their own particular appeal, after all. Once you probe the Supermarket option sufficiently diligently you discover that it derives from relationships between those outlets and enterprising persons on the lookout for entrepreneurial opportunities, mostly women, and farmers ready ‘do deals’ with them.
For the farmers, these openings offer opportunities to increase the volumes that they can get off their hands in circumstances where the likely option is spoilage and diminishing profitability. Mind you, the Supermarket Chiller option will probably never ‘trump’ the habits of the adherents of the municipal market bump and grind, nor the adherents of nocturnal marketing, earnestly seeking the end-of-trading-day bargains. These have long provided evidence of a determination to stand their ground, on the basis that their preference brings a more ‘appealing’ dimension to ‘doing the shopping.’ Here, one might add, that the success of the more recent relationship forged between the modern supermarket and the ‘middle men’ who forge earnest relationships with the farmer, while not new, would appear to be paying bigger dividends these days. This particular aspect of the retail culture would appear to have derived from careful contemplation of consumer behaviour.
The global vegetables-in-the-supermarket phenomenon has been purely a matter of convenience. Our own Guyana market has become more receptive to that phenomenon. Convenience over custom. The greens-in-the-supermarket culture may have gotten here a good deal later, though it seems that it might well be here to stay There is a sense in which it was perhaps an inevitability. Recall that long before we began to sell the labels of the enterprising local middlemen, we were already selling the labels of foreign companies. Remember how popular the famous Bachelors’ label, associated with imported greens and vegetables was with local consumers several decades ago? What the contemporary trend suggests is that we are, after all, open to change. Beyond that there would have been other dimensions to the process than brought about the transformation.. .like the whole idea of bora in a bag with pleasing labels that include identifiable pictures of the vegetable itself.
Those requirements go with an understanding between the seller and the supermarket that the whole idea of greens in the Chiller would appeal to the consumer only if the packaging of the product was several ‘cuts’ above the recycled plastic bag option that obtains in the accustomed retail environment. Anything short of pleasing to the eye, was likely to ‘work wonders’ to completely erode customer appeal. Other interesting dimensions to the wider greens-in-supermarkets materialized. After the niche had emerged it would have attracted the contemplation of entrepreneurially-minded Guyanese searching for money-making options… new kids on the entrepreneurial block. There would have been the back-and-forth engagements among the farmers, the middle men and the buyers. Rules that had to do with product quality, price, packaging and delivery schedules would have had to be worked out. If you visit the Bounty Supermarket on any random day, you are likely to find an engaging female supplier, on the floor, packaging her produce and placing the packages in their designated places.
On the other hand, stifling an ingrained culture/habit is by no means the easiest of tasks. The basket-carrying, Saturday market shopper on the hunt for ‘fresh greens and vegetables’ will probably never become an anachronism in Guyana. The municipal market (and what, these days, are increasingly popular Farmers’ Markets) have become ingrained in the wider Guyanese shopping culture. The signs are unmistakable, however. Tradition will have to share the available space with what are now irreversible adjustments in consumer demand patterns. The die, in terms of consumer demand changes and consequential adjustments in approaches to satisfying consumer demand, is now firmly cast.
