With the advent of supermarkets in urban centres in many developing countries, the question of their impact on access to food and food security for the urban poor has arisen. This paper examines the consequences, and also looks at the effect supermarkets can have rural agriculture and food security.

Supermarkets can provide better quality products to better-off consumers in developing countries, and thus contribute positively to their food security. With some food commodities, supermarkets are able to offer lower prices, improving access to food. This paper notes that, crucially, supermarkets don't appear to make a positive contribution to food security for poorer people in middle-income counties, or even middle-income groups in poorer countries.

For rural agricultural producers, high quality-requirements and global procurement systems mean that suppliers who can meet the quantity and quality requirements of supermarkets can benefit from these new retail channels. They also gain easier access to export markets. But again, this study and others point out that smaller and poorer producers, unable to meet these requirements, are usually marginalised and food security suffers. Furthermore, by reducing competition from other retail trading, there can be a significant loss of employment- and thus reduced food security- from the traditional sector.