Food Retail in Ukraine: Trends and Consequences of Crisis Transformations of the Food System

Abstract

Sustainable transformations in some segments of the food system, which have recently occurred due to military conflicts, extreme climate events and epidemics, necessitate their in-depth study. Ensuring the population's physical and economic access to food to a certain extent depends on food retail (domestic retail trade), which, together with other components of the food system, has undergone transformation and requires an assessment of development trends. The article aims to identify development trends and transformations that occurred from 2012 to 2021 in Ukraine's food retail industry as a component of the food system. The study used general scientific and special methods: dialectical and logical to summarize the scientific basis for identifying transformations in food retail; economic-statistical – for processing and analyzing statistical data; tabular and graphical – for visualizing and summarizing the research results. The authors summarize conceptual approaches to the interpretation and essence of transformations in food systems and features of the formation of modern food policy. The differences in food retail transformations in modern and traditional food systems were revealed. Trends in the development and transformation of food retail during 2012-2021 were identified, including changes in the quantitative structure of stores and retail space, turnover volumes, profitability of trade, volumes of consumption of basic food products, consumer prices, etc. With the advent of Internet commerce, qualitative changes have occurred in serving consumers, mainly through creating online goods delivery services, mobile applications, and social networks. Using innovative food retail management technologies increases the efficiency of trade operations and improves product supply. As a result of the transformation of consumer priorities, health and sports nutrition stores and farm products have become stores with a focus on their safety and quality.

Keywords

• food retail
• food system
• transformations
• crisis
• food products
• domestic retail