local market in Valparaiso By Jana Siimes
Enter Andabolla, a typical winery and property of Valparaíso, located on Calle Chacabuco, it's like time travel. The sound of the street away a bit and smells of the different products are presented, the oregano, cumin and other seasonings dominate. The seller uses a cash machine to where they have used both the buttons that you can hardly read the numbers. The seller has it was before and how the trade in Chacabuco street.
This street was pure wineries. Pure wineries given to small traders of the hill.
Between the years 1985-1995 exchange trading system for wineries. He counts as a step change;
Change the system as distributing the goods. The merchandise arrived earlier more direct, with trucks and came directly from the producer.
The changes affected the small traders who had to pay more for the product but always selling price. Almost all the wineries have gone missing from the street vendor end.
The merchandise changes were for small traders Chacabuco and the rest of Valparaiso was formed due to the growth of large supermarkets. Distributors and producers bought in supermarkets and that under the sales of traders working in old form.
And supermarkets achieved success with his way of working. Today there are supermarkets on virtually the entire city. The supermarket is one such leader. In Bellavista Leader I meet Raul Soto, who works as a cashier in the company.
The emergence of these supermarkets were doing away with these wineries, these family businesses by the inability to share against these prices. Because we take into account that the supplier you buy 100 I will offer much better price if I buy one or two thousand. Then the competition that is generated between a monstruomercado and hold neighborhood was very uneven.
Where does the concept supermarket? Raul Soto tells the story as the leader came to the country, which is not a company Chilean, but part of a multinational corporation called Walmart.
comes to light recently, but it is a project that I think came about twenty years ago when brothers Wayne, Deasy owners, traveled to America to see how the market and put eyes on Walmart.
Walmart is one of the largest companies worldwide, with characteristics of a famous monster of capitalism, which generates resources from the cost reduction. There is a very good documentary called "the high cost of low prices" and speaks all reality it works like Walmart and generates the largest sum of money.
A key gain of supermarkets is working with a retail system. What does that mean?
is selling many retail products with low profit margin, for example, I buy 100 and sell at 110, is 10 pesos. But I sell a thousand of those. Is the sale of detail but a lot of people.
For the producer the system gain is also changed when customers are no longer small traders, but majors. Raul Soto said that a few years ago was not uncommon to see foreigners negotiate directly with farmers in the hinterland. But contracts are often unsafe for the producer who also deals with poor working conditions. Companies play unfairly with its economic and sometimes pass scenarios like the following:
I'll buy the entire production of this year and next, says the company. The farmer saw a tremendous ease of not having to go and negotiate and compete to sell their products. By the third year, when it had expired the contract, saying "I will I'll buy the entire production of this year but at half the price before you buy." And the dealer says the farmer, "you already know not to sell." "I'm your only client." "I sell it at 50% or not I'll buy it and stay with your whole production."
The supermarket concept not only brings an unfair market products. His business ethics as it also affects consumers. With the facilities of the credit card people buy their products at the supermarket. Business approaches the convenience of this but there are major drawbacks to use it, many people get into debt due to credit and are forced to continue buying in the same store. That said Rodrigo Castillo, one of the independent market vendors of Valparaiso.
The famous cards, plastic money we call it, has plunged the people into a vicious circle. The guy works 30 days and pay him his salary, and apart from these cards, and runs out of cash. So if you want something you have to go to the supermarket liability. And that means that you pay more interest because they pay a premium price compared to what ours is SuperCare. Then you will deceive yourself because you spend the card shop, do not look at the price.
Rodrigo Castillo believes that today people have a too fast pace of life where many people lack time to go to the market to buy.
And maybe the fact that shopping in a supermarket or a fair is a matter of social class and affinity. Have the resources to go and buy an expensive product in a supermarket is a status symbol. The admiration of the American economic system makes the show not look attractive. People say that there is a stigmatization of the fairs; that are soiled with low quality products.
In another post next to the market I meet a fellow vendor. The growth of supermarkets has not greatly affected their business. They have their regular customers, and say it is the people of the hills to buy on the market. His companion explains how it works:
The business people get the people of the hill. The leads here as 20-30 years and did not greatly affect the supermarkets, they are very expensive. Here we have better prices.
In the market I meet Veronica also sell fruit. For her it is very important the relationship with customers. In fact there are people who do not buy if Veronica is not attending. Such a service is not in a supermarket.
not leave here, I expect and I would like to attend. I say that I have a way to attend. Also I have regular customers who buy every week I come here and leave their shopping lists.
Although supermarkets offer you a service throughout the week, special offers and low prices, there are other things of value to the consumer. It seems that the market is still alive and Valparaiso in general do not have affected the sales of supermarkets there. The common people are not going to stop buying their products from their favorite vendor.
economic and social aspect of the show and local markets are a good choice. But if we dig even further? As we face the environmental aspect of products, can you talk about organic goods, local produce and food security?
A large part of our products that we consume daily come from other regions and countries, which makes you lose water and using energy and polluting transport. It is difficult to find the source of supermarket products and the market. Many times they are products of chemical farming, where farmers use pesticides and fertilizers, grown in distant lands with poor labor contracts.
With chemical farming does not respect the seasons of the fruit. So says Andrea Godoy, owner of "organic flea market" every Saturday at noon is presented next to the restaurant Breakfast in Cerro Alegre. The meeting at the Waldorf School of Limache, and sat down to talk in the middle of a circle of plants. She explains the complicity of the seasons of plants:
If you land on plants such as tomatoes in summer, in winter you have to plant another species that return of the land so the plant go away.
The organic flea market every week there are different products, according to the natural cycles of each plant.
Taking seasonal vegetables means that the vegetables are always going to be in your best point of maturity with all the vitamins, proteins and life force according to the season.
Andrea products can also be classified as fair trade, what does that mean?
who else wins Here is the farmer. The price paid the farmer for vegetables is higher. Unlike the fair market or supermarket where the farmer is the one who earns less. Those who win are the middlemen.
Andrea is telling us about the reality of workers in the harvest and the impacts of the products treated with pesticides in the bodies of consumers.
's news that are hidden but there is a lot of damage, especially people working in the harvest because the time is not observed in blood of the poison. Tone makes people sick and are poisons so great that here in Chile are accepted but that the European Union are prohibited. Remain dormant in the body and cause such malformations in fetuses and abortions.
El trabajo que hace Andrea Godoy es un excelente ejemplo de como tomar otro este camino y de cómo enfrentarse al poder alimenticia de las grandes multinacionales.
Raúl Soto, trabajador en el Líder de Bellavista, finaliza la entrevista diciendo que talvez en un futuro podría existir una expansión de los supermercados hacia los cerros de Valparaíso.
A nivel económico yo creo que estos grandes y poderosos monstruos de retail: las farmacias, tiendas de ropa, las multitiendas van a continuar expanding their land. They will start building stores in the hills. Trying to generate needs to people, things that did not were very necessary "- could have a supermarket here in the corner of the house." And what will occur? Increased dependence on people to these giants, greater economic dependence on the labor issue and will cause a decrease in family businesses and independent.
The economic power of the supermarkets has a great influence on these types of expansions. Raul says you have to take other options, create independent businesses and promote these to the others.
also depends on the state sets limits to these companies. If the hand brake, which was due to this industry, you create instances of participation and education of ourselves that we can not rely on these major markets will be a very positive development.
