The world’s biggest supermarket, Wal-Mart has tried to get a foothold in India but it long landed on mainland China and more recently in South Africa after buying into Massmart. Closer home, supermarkets have been an economic phenomenon in the last two decades.

Uchumi pioneered and even got listed in the stock exchange. It seems to me our government was once very foresighted, starting Uchumi long before supermarkets proliferated into every estate and hamlet.

In the early 1970s, the Government even ran a variant of a derivatives market; what the Capital Markets Authority is proposing. Any aged farmer will recall the Guaranteed Minimum Return, a programme where farmers were assured a basic return on their crops. I am told corruption killed the programme.

Read more.

Compare Supermarket Prices in Kenya | BeiYangu