Changes and permanence in small food products trade: the circuits of the urban economy of Sobral/CE

Abstract

Modernities, which materialize in the territory of underdeveloped countries, occur selectively, generating inequalities and disorganizing local economies. Currently, new forms of production and consumption are spreading in various parts of the territory. Sobral, average city of hinterland of Ceará, has been included in the spatial division of labor and has become an important place of consumption. The modern retail trade, characteristic of the superior circuit of the economy and represented in this survey by supermarkets, arrived in the city and has contributed with a new dynamic in all the trade, retailer and wholesaler, of food products in the city. The small food trade, characteristic of the lower circuit and represented in this research, mainly by the grocery, stores, bakeries, fruits and vegetable sector, butchers and small stores, manifests permanence and changes resulting from the relations that involve, on the one side, the survival of a portion of the population living in poverty and, on the other, the necessity to remain in a market that is becoming increasingly competitive. The central objective of this research was to analyze if the coexistence of the various forms of food trade points to an intensification of the relations of complementarity and subordination between the two circuits of the urban economy from the analysis of the changes and stays perceived in the various segments of this branch of the economy. We established as a spatial clipping the headquarters of the municipality and as a time frame for our analysis the period 2006-2018. The methodology, based on the critical method, used as resources the periodization, the analysis of quantitative and qualitative data collected in available databases and in field work. The survey found numerous contrasts in the small food trade in the city of Sobral and the typical flexibility of the poor economy.