On the supply side, there are two types of wholesalers. Cash-and-carry ones operate stores, similar to warehouses, where they sell food and drink, mostly to traditional retailers and smaller horeca.2 Customers select and take away their purchases themselves. Delivery wholesalers, by contrast, deliver goods from their warehouses direct to their customers, mostly midsize or large food service operators. Both types of wholesalers abound in each food category, but delivery wholesalers are particularly numerous; generally small, local family businesses, they supply 50 to 60 percent of the market in all countries. Cash-and-carry outlets serve 10 to 20 percent of it, and other intermediaries, such as retail hypermarkets and a few food manufacturers, supply the rest。
Overall, Europe’s wholesale market for food and drink is growing at the same sluggish pace as the retail market, but the aggregate figures mask two opposing trends. The first and more important is the consumer’s growing preference for eating out: consumption of food and drink in places other than homes has risen from about 32 percent of total consumption in 1995 to 35 percent in 2000 and is expected to approach 38 percent by 2005 (Exhibit 1). This development is boosting wholesale demand from the food service segment by 4 to 5 percent a year across Europe, compared with growth in retail demand of 1 to 2 percent. Moreover, demographic change—particularly the increase in the proportion of older, wealthier people in the population—will probably sustain this pattern。
