Creating Competitive Space: Exploring the Social and Political Maintenance of Retail Power

Abstract

The authors explore the processes by which British corporate retailers are maintaining their predominance in food provision in the 1990s. Taking the ‘new retailing geography’ literature as a context, they first outline the key features (spatial, sectoral, and supply related) of retailers' dynamic competitive space. They then examine the regulatory mechanisms used to influence policy development. The authors begin to address the ways in which combinations of regulatory and consumer culture influence the uneven development and maintenance of corporate retailing and food provision in the United Kingdom, focusing specifically on retailers' definitions and strategies associated with the provision of food quality.