Food distributors are functional intermediaries based on the fundamental laws of supply and demand. The United States has evolved to the point where restaurants, grocery stores, institutions, and shoppers rely heavily on distributors. Before the arrival of food distributors (or “suppliers” to those in the food industry), food and goods were brought directly to market from their place of origin. It was not until several generations ago that this was the common practice. Some communities in the United States still do this. The community market was an undesignated meeting place for the entire community. Farmers, fishermen, families, merchants, chefs, restaurateurs, butchers, bakers, cheesemakers, and other artisans came together to buy, trade, and exchange goods and services.
Markets in the United States are not dead and still exist today, despite the majority of the population adopting the grocery store concept. Even to this day, many thousands of people gather weekly in small towns to buy locally grown corn, freshly baked Amish cookies, table after table of apples from local orchards, rows of produce, live chickens, ducks, geese, rabbits. , turkeys, etc. goats, cows, fudge and a myriad of farm tools, household goods and trinkets. Other markets still have the “Old World” atmosphere, such as Hay Market in Boston (Friday / Saturday across from the North End) and New York City’s China Town.
As good as open air markets are, they are limited. Don’t expect to buy freshly caught soft shell crabs in Iowa. Likewise, the maple syrup you are buying in Phoenix will not come from a cactus in the future. Markets are estimated to have started to decline in the late 19th century. The explosion of immigration in the late 1800s brought cultures and ingredients from around the world into our kitchens. New demands came of age. The advent of refrigeration now allowed products from all over the country and its ports to reach anyone in the United States. Another culinary explosion occurred after World War II, when hundreds of thousands of soldiers were returning home bringing with them some newfound gastronomic interests. The economic boom was underway and restaurants were gaining popularity. One of the final evolutions came with the Food Network and the idea of celebrity chefs. There was a time when only the best chefs in the world had the honor of having a cookbook; Now a pretty face and a good publicist can get you published.
Now that a demand had been established, the entrepreneurs came to supply it. With a fleet of trucks, trains, ships, and catalogs, they sought out restaurants, bakeries, institutions, and grocery stores with guarantees that antiquated markets couldn’t match: consistency, quality, and variety. A customer can now buy bananas at a grocery store in the dead of winter in North Dakota. Sushi-grade tuna, indigenous only to the oceans, can be cut into sashimi at restaurants in Chicago’s business district. Kobe beef from Japan could now be guaranteed at any of the best restaurants in San Francisco. Now we literally have world cuisine preserved and packaged for us at our fingertips in any city. Thus, there is little doubt that while some condemn the decline of traditional markets and the older way of doing things, large distribution networks have refined food production, distribution and costs in a grade so high that they go nowhere. .