"Walmart and Tesco won’t help India’s food security problems," 11 Mar 2016

…Large domestic retailers such as Future Retail, Big Bazaar and Reliance Industries are trying hard to appeal to Indian shoppers. Alongside them…Metro…Walmart and…Tesco…[C]ould western-style food retailing help India’s very real food security challenges? In the west, supermarkets have driven down…cost…through investment in sourcing and logistics…In 2013, the average UK family spent…11.4%...of their household income on food. In India, the proportion is 42.6% for city-dwellers…However…there’s the issue of economic viability…To turn a profit, large-scale food retailers are geared…to middle and upper class urban consumers. That leaves the 850 million rural Indians almost completely untouched...International multibrand retailers are currently only allowed to enter as part of joint ventures with local partners…[N]avigating the Indian market is no straightforward task for a foreign retail investor…Direct farm ownership by retailers is effectively prohibited by Indian law, which also limits the capacity of food retailers to deal directly with producers…Dutta, from Third Eyesight…says food retailers don’t have the time, resources or space to tackle India’s agricultural shortcomings head-on…