San Daniele (DOP)

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The Carrefour supermarket that I sometimes go to in Italy is my favourite supermarket. I’ve been to a few in Europe. I’ve been to Rewe in Germany and Albert Heijn in the Netherlands; what have you. Nothing for me can come close to the Carrefour at Via Cassia in Rome. The whole of Italy’s agricultural might is found in that supermarket. I counted something like forty types of cheeses last time I was there. Think about that, forty types. I don’t think I could name ten. Right beside the cheese isle you have the seafood section. Fresh seafood. Everything you could think of is there: sea bream, shrimp, mussels, oysters, octopus, and whatever “spigola” is. And there’s so much more: one million types of pasta (approximately), fruits and veggies, condiments, Prosciutto San Daniele, whatever. Oh, and wine! So, so much wine.

This is all very incredible if you take a moment to think about it. I mean, imagine how an everyday Roman citizen eats today. You’d have to be a nobleman to eat like that in the past. And if, by some stroke of good fortune, you have access to an Italian grandma, you really can eat like an emperor. It’s unbelievable what these people have done with food. But anyways, the point is that just a few meters from your house, you, a Roman, have access to all that Italian agriculture has achieved. Imagine if you didn’t have that. Life would be quite a hassle, wouldn’t it? You certainly wouldn’t have as much time on your hands. But here you have this huge building that you can just walk in to and buy anything you might ever need. It’s a massive achievement for humanity. We’ve completely made a joke of the food chain. For better or worse, this feat is at the very least incredibly impressive.

Carrefour by itself demonstrated a few things to me. The first was the power of agriculture in Italy. The sheer diversity of products is mind-boggling. What a crazy amount of variety! When I say power of agriculture, I mean industrialisation, too. I mean, take a look at this pre-cooked, packaged octopus on the left. Can you believe that? Do you know how hard packaging is in Albania? When I spoke with the founder of an NGO that works with farmers in the Albanian Alps, he told me that packaging is one of the main challenges our farmers have. In Italy, though, you can get this octopus neatly wrapped up, just like a present.

It’s even crazier if you look at the UK. My brother sent me this picture some months ago. That’s two avocados that are ripe enough to eat right away, and two that need a day or two to get just right. To make that happen, there needs to be demand for such a thing. Many of us may have had the dreaded spoiled avocado conundrum befall us, but to actually make it into a product – how developed that market must be for such a product exists.

So, thus far, we have the convenience of finding a vast array of products available in one location and the innovation of a supply chain that’s geared towards industrialisation and mass distribution. That’s already quite something for Carrefour and other supermarkets to have achieved. But the second thing that Carrefour made me think about is the power of a global supply chain. After all, I was able to buy prosciutto (I just can’t, in good conscience, write ham there) San Daniele DOP in Munich. I have to say I was particularly thankful for that one, as Germany is not really well known for its food. Jokes aside though, I want you to take note of that “DOP” for a moment. Do you know what that means? It translates to “Protected Designation of Origin”. That’s a certification used in the EU that attests to the (i) geographic origin, (ii) traditional method of production, as well as the (iii) quality and reputability of a product. So amazing. It's a credibility enhancer. That’s how I know that the prosciutto I buy at Rewe is the same as the one in Carrefour, albeit a bit more expensive (worth it).

This also relates to one other role that supermarkets play: standardization and safety. In the UK, for instance, supermarkets are the authorities of how food gets transported, how it’s imported, and what gets placed on the shelves of consumers. The powers that supermarkets wield are quite substantial in the UK. They are the overseers of food safety, coordinating with regulatory agencies and putting out standardized protocols.

Supermarkets are not the same in every place, though. For example, if you’re a green bean farmer from Burkina Faso (Africa) looking to send your products to France and the UK, you’d have a much easier time with the former. France does not even require packaging from these small-scale farmers; they simply buy in bulk. That wouldn’t fly in the UK; everything needs to be neatly packed, organized and indexed. Fairly typical of bureaucracy in the UK, I‘d say.

As a result of this oversight and determination of what consumers actually have access to, supermarkets have effectively shaped modern consumer behaviour. I’m sure you’re familiar with the phrase “you are what you eat”. This is one of life’s absolute truths. Consumers have fundamentally suffered or benefitted from what supermarkets decide to fill their shelves with. Because of this, they have an ethical responsibility to the people. Supermarkets in the US are a prime example; full of ultra-processed, non-nutrients. Terrible. That’s how you get a 13% childhood obesity rate. Coordination between supermarkets, policymakers and the private sector is necessary if your neighbourhood’s supermarkets will have fruits and veggies that cost less than that ultra-processed junk.

More towards the state building end, supermarkets have led to economic development and urbanisation. A supermarket creates jobs, contributes to the local economy, and in some cases integrates into the global economy. They support the agricultural sector by acting as aggregators and providing a fixed price for farmers. Imagine how valuable that would be in Albania, where price stability is inexistent because no one knows how much others are paying for a product, or where small-scale farmers have to throw away tonnes of produce in canals because market access is one of their biggest challenges. More than that, imagine how robust supermarket entities can serve as enhancers of food safety in Albania, a country where consumers’ fears over the food they eat are ever present.

At the end of the day, the rise of supermarkets has paralleled urbanization. The rise of a middle class that demands convenience and safety is a symbol of modernity and economic progress. Supermarkets have helped usher that in. Organization and innovation of supply chains, centralization of goods, standardization and food safety, economic development, and productivity. These are the achievements of supermarkets in human society, and these are the goals that supermarkets in Albania have to aim for.

Albania’s agricultural sector is stagnant because of two major challenges today; market access and food safety. We have already discussed how food safety should be addressed in Albania, and supermarkets can play a crucial role in that goal. The other challenge, market access, is where supermarkets in Albania can really shine. I mentioned Albanian farmers throwing away tonnes of produce, and that’s not a joke. They simply can’t get all their products to market, despite the presence of some state-owned aggregators in Albania. A robust supermarket industry that is able to replace small-scale stores is missing.

This industry needs to be present; it needs to work with state regulators to determine how food is consumed in our country; it needs to work with food safety institutions to protect consumers. This will open up the door to economic growth and greater employability. It can help breathe some life into the rural villages of Albania that are mostly inhabited by farmers and that are now being abandoned. Most importantly, though, it can help Albanian agriculture get from fragmentation – where it’s impossible to monitor and regulate consumption and food safety – to integration. We need to be able to regulate so that we can begin to measure, innovate, and finally grow.