A Hierarchical Structure and Functional Changes in Middle-wholesalers of Vegetables and Fruits : An example in the Main Market of Central Wholesale Market of Osaka City

• KIMURA Akitoshi

  Graduate School of Agriculture, Osaka Prefecture University

Bibliographic Information

Other Title

• 青果物仲卸業者の階層構造と機能変化 : 大阪市中央卸売市場本場を事例として

Abstract

Middle-wholesalers in the Main Market of Central Wholesale Market of Osaka City have been changing their functions due to a diversification spread of dealings with large-sized stores, along with the decrease in reselling to other wholesale markets, both circumstances are mainly an outcome of the decrease in the number of speciality retail stores. The subject of this thesis is to solve four problems on the basis of the results from a hearing research made to 29 middle-wholesalers who belong to the Main Market of Central Wholesale Market of Osaka City. These four problems are: the hierarchical structure of the middle-wholesalers and its characteristics I the actual reaction of the middle-wholesalers to large sized stores; the actual reaction of the middle-wholesalers to reselling to other markets; the actual situation of the middle-wholesalers who are making up corporate groups. Finally, the direction of functional changes in the middle-wholesalers of vegetables and fruits has been considered. As a result, as far as their reaction to large-sized stores is concerned, there exist some problems such as severe requirements on prices, a risk caused by unstable dealings, an existence of rebates, heavy delivery costs, costs and labor for processing work, and labor needed for classification. As far as their reaction to reselling is concerned, the low margin rate can be taken up as a problem. On the other hand, some large-sized middle-wholesalers are organizing their own groups and establishing firms for the purpose of buying-in outside the market. They seem to be putting business emphasis on this sort of direct buying-in method and, in turn, the groups are changing to an independent trading companies. In the future, market pressures will be placed on these middle wholesalers to drastically decrease their numbers because of a large-scale reorganization of many small dealers who still exist. Moreover, they will be changing their functions as they obtain additional roles of buying in agents for large-sized stores, processors and transporters, while keeping their present function as a middle-wholesaler.

Journal

• The Agricultural Marketing Journal of Japan

  The Agricultural Marketing Journal of Japan 6 (1), 33-42, 1997-09-30

  The Agricultural Marketing Society of Japan

Keywords

• Middle-wholesaler's function
• Selling to large-sized stores
• Reselling to other markets

Details

• CRID: 1390564238092936192
• NII Article ID: 110009896438
• NII Book ID: AN10397280
• DOI: 10.18921/amsj.6.1_33
• ISSN: 24240427
• ISSN: 1341934X
• Text Lang: ja
• Data Source:
  • JaLC
  • CiNii Articles
• Abstract License Flag: Disallowed