Eurasianet corespondent Marianna Grigoryan's recent piece about hypermarket chain Carrefour's struggle to break into the Armenian market because of a group of oligarchs' control over the food supply chain, provided a fascinating glimpse into how rotten politics can impact the most mundane daily chores, such as shopping and cooking. Interested in hearing more about this story, I sent Marianna a list of followup questions. Our exchange is below:
1. What made you think about reporting on this subject?
When nearly six months ago it was announced that Carrefour is coming to Yerevan, many people were curious to see if that at least will happen. In Armenia, where in many spheres there is the heavy existence of monopolies, Carrefour’s possible existence became some kind of question of principa. I was excited, as were many others, to have Carrefour in Yerevan as a competitive hypermarket next to Yerevan's existing two or three supermarket networks. But at the other side speculations started as expected and severak months later there is still nothing exact – only Carrefour's “Opening soon.” So I decided to write about the situation in light of a story I had already started about Armenian oligarchs. 2. In general, where do Armenians shop for their food?
In general in Armenia, especially in Yerevan, the biggest network of supermarkets-hypermarkets is 'Yerevan City,' which belongs to the pro-government oligarch Samvel Aleksanyan, a member of parliament who controls sugar, flour and other spheres of food import and dictates the “prices.” For example, officially 99.9 percent of sugar imports and domestic sales belong to his family. There are also two other supermarket networks but they have been mostly empty in recent months. 3. Do you think Armenians are looking for the kind of shopping experience a Carrefour would offer?
KFC shocked the fast food world last month when it announced that it had plans to start selling its fried chicken in Mongolia, which has mostly remained terra incognita for global fast food brands. The previous international fried chicken chain to have tried its luck in Mongolia was Kenny Rogers Roasters', whose gamble on the country lasted only a few years.
Home to Asia's fastest-growing economy, Mongolia may make sense as the Colonel's next target for international growth, but the Financial Times has an interesting column about why the Mongolian market is such a tough one to crack, especially for fast food chains. From the FT:
The crux for franchises in Mongolia has been the challenge of delivering – in what is after all a distant and isolated location – the consistency and quality control customers demand. Relying on a single railway line from China and the absence of other transport infrastructure raises the cost of essential ingredients and drives prices beyond levels familiar to western consumers.
Though Mongolia has 14 head of cattle per person, meat producer Just Agro is the only one with facilities that meet export standards. Russia banned imports of Mongolian meat following outbreaks of diseases such as foot and mouth. The ban was lifted in November 2011 and the Mongolian government has since been looking at ways of selling its meat as a high-quality, speciality product.
“I’m very sceptical that chain restaurants will be able to provide the same low-cost service they can in the US in these developing markets due to ingredient scarcity,” says [Matt Jones, an associate at Mongolian Investment Capital Corporation a local investment bank], who has yet to find a franchise interested in coming to Mongolia. “To obtain high-quality and consistent products, you have to pay a higher price relative to the rest of the market.”
As the United States winds down its military presence in Afghanistan, there are growing concerns in Washington about what a limited American role in the country might mean for security and for the viability of Afghanistan's still shaky governmental institutions.
One American agency, though, sees a bright future in Afghanistan -- for energy drink companies. In a report released this month by the Department of Agriculture's Foreign Agricultural Service, the USDA suggest that boom times may be ahead for foreign energy drink makers interested in entering the Afghan market. From the report:
Historically, Afghanistan has been a lightly caffeinated, tea-drinking country. Few Afghans drink coffee, but in recent years, many have developed a taste for energy drinks. Today, Afghans consume energy drinks everywhere and at all hours of the day: during the morning commute to work, in wedding halls, and at private dinners.
Energy drinks are sold everywhere – from street vendors to grocery stores to the finest restaurants. Exact sales figures and just how big the market is remains unknown. However, it is clear that the market for energy drinks is growing rapidly, and that a large number of new brands are competing for customers.
In a fascinating article from last December, RFE/RL offers more on the subject of how Afghanistan went from a "lightly caffeinated" society to a very heavily caffeinated one, reporting that even Taliban fighters are getting into the habit, imbibing energy drinks in order help them on the battlefield. But, as RFE/RL reports, some are calling for a ban on the drinks, both on religious and food safety grounds:
Like Turkey itself, the simit -- the round, sesame-encrusted bread ring that is a ubiquitous presence on the streets of Istanbul and most other Turkish cities -- is entertaining some very global ambitions. As CulinaryBackstreets.com reports, the humble simit is now taking on the mighty bagel in New York:
First, longstanding Istanbul baklava maker Güllüoğlu opened a branch in Midtown East and began selling freshly baked simit under the moniker “Turkish bagel.”
Now, a brand-new establishment with an entirely simit-based menu, Simit + Smith, has opened on the Upper West Side, with plans in the works to expand to the Financial District and elsewhere in the city. The eatery offers an array of sandwiches and sweet and savory snack items made with (purists beware!) three different types of simit: original with sesame, whole wheat with sesame or whole grain. Moreover, Simit + Smith seems to be squarely taking aim at the New York bagel market, noting on its website that “Simit have 2/3 the calories and much less fat than bagels or pretzels and contain all natural ingredients with absolutely no sugar.”
But will New Yorkers, notoriously wedded to their bagels, make the switch? The New York Daily News recently got on the story, polling a handful of top bagel connoisseurs about their opinions on simit, with reactions that ranged from enthusiastic to derisive:
In the end, history, nostalgia and Istanbulites love for cream puffs covered in goopy chocolate sauce were not enough to stand up to the forces of development that have been rapidly changing the face of Turkey's largest city. This week, after a drawn out legal battle, the classic and well-loved sweets shop Inci -- which has long claimed to be the birthplace of the profiterole -- was finally shut down and evicted from the historic building it was housed in, which is set to be "restored" and turned into a shopping mall.
The 70-year-old Inci was most likely not the place where the profiterole was invented and probably didn't even have Istanbul's best version of the dish, but the old-school spot was nonetheless an institution, a culinary touchstone for tourists and locals alike and one of the last operating links to an older Istanbul that's quickly disappearing. On the Culinary Backstreets website, Ansel Mullins offers this eulogy for Inci:
For many, the mention of İnci wells up a sentimental memory of the first taste of something sweet in this classic patisserie, but for us, as non-local students of the area’s heritage, it always represented the last of public emblem of Beyoğlu’s non-Muslim community, a culture long on life support. Though the history of İnci – established in 1944 by a Greek migrant from Albania named Lucas Zigoridis (aka Luka Zigori) – is more recent than the late-19th-century heyday of the neighborhood, it was still a part of that tradition.
In what may be a somewhat questionable act of architectural preservation, Baku's historic Sabunchu rail station, a Moorish-influeneced stone structure built in 1926, now has the distinction of the being largest fried chicken shack on the planet. Opened with great fanfare -- check out the this YouTube video from the restaurant's high voltage ribbon-cutting ceremony last month, -- this latest KFC outpost was reportedly built with an investment of 3 million euros, used to restore the railway station, which had been falling apart after years of neglect.
Considering the glee with which Azeri officials are bulldozing historic parts of Baku in order to make way for ever-taller buildings, the opening of this new monster KFC may ultimately be a good thing. Azerbaijan, that land of ironic twists, may be one of the few places in the world where turning a classic railway station into a fried chicken restaurant may actually be considered a step in a positive direction.
While much of the focus (and occasional hand wringing) regarding Turkish foreign policy in recent years has been over Ankara's reengagement with the Middle East, the truth of the matter is that Turkey has been no less active in developing its diplomatic and economic presence in the Balkans. Like in other regions, in the Balkans Turkish diplomacy is working not only to deepen Turkey's political influence there, but also to open new door for Turkish business. (For some background, take a look at this previous post.)
Take a look, for example, at how Turkey is promoting its tea in Macedonia. As an interesting article from SETimes.com makes clear, the effort is about much more than just selling tea. From the article:
Chajkur, the largest producer of tea in Turkey, launched its national drink in several Macedonian cities. The promotional campaign, Friendly Greeting for Friendly Macedonia, offered sample tasting and production presentations.
Abdulkadri Bayraktar, Turkish consul in Macedonia, told SETimes that this investment will bring other Turkish investors to the country....
....Ismail Safi, president of the Turkish group in the parliamentary assembly of the Black Sea Economic Co-operation, told SETimes said that in visiting Macedonia, the goal is not only to offer tea to their Macedonian friends, but also search out for more investment opportunities.
"The main goal was to present the Turkish tea in Macedonia, because we found out that [the product] is not known here enough, and is hard to find. We want Macedonians to get used to it, discover the advantages of tea, and later make some investments … We hope to increase marketing relations in the future," Safi said.
"Macedonia is one of the most important allies and friends of Turkey," Gilaj Daljan, a Turkish MP, said.
Can culinary tourism play an important role in helping create sustainable development in some of the countries along the ancient silk road? A new report recently released by the World Tourism Organization (UNWTO) says that might be the case, suggesting that a growing demand for "experience based" tourism could open the door for countries to earn tourists' dollars by promoting their gastronomy.
The report, though plagued by poorly written language that often reads like it was taken from a tourism ministry brochure, does offer some interesting insights into how countries in Central Asia (and other parts of the world) are trying to capitalize on their culinary traditions, even if those traditions include, as in Kazakhstan's case, the consumption of horse meat.
Are elected officials in Yerevan trying to take any local color out of the city's food scene? That certainly seems to be the case. Last year, the city's mayor issued a ban on street vendors -- many of them fruit and vegetable sellers -- in an effort to "clean up" Yerevan. More worrisome for Yerevan residents, it now looks like local leaders are turning a blind eye while the city's well-known indoor market, the now shuttered Pak Shuka, is in danger of being demolished by a businessman cum politician who reportedly wants to turn it into a supermarket.
In a detail-rich report, The Armenian Weekly lays out the whole sordid tale:
This blog has previously written about the phenomenal success of Turkish-born Hamdi Ulukaya, who has managed to turn the Chobani brand of yogurt into the United States' most successful purveyor of of "Greek style" yogurt (more "Turkish style" in this case). Ulukaya's is a wonderful rags-to-milky-riches story: born in a small village in eastern Turkey, the businessman came to America, bought a defunct yogurt factory in upstate New York and turned into a fast-growing enterprise that had some $700 million in sales last year.
Ulukaya has been so successful that he's been dubbed the "Steve Jobs of yogurt." In fact, Chobani's success is now a driving factor in a New York state government effort to create a kind of "yogurt valley" in the dairy-producing part of the state where the company and several competitors are located. As the New York Times reports, Governor Andrew Cuomo recently presided over NY's first-ever "Yogurt Summit," designed to further boost the state's booming "Greek style" yogurt biz. From the NYT's report:
The Cuomo administration designed a logo for the meeting, featuring a cow with a spot on its side in the shape of New York State, and the governor wore a lapel pin with the yogurt logo. The administration also commissioned a custom-made backdrop, printed with “New York State Yogurt Summit” in capital letters, for Mr. Cuomo and other dignitaries to sit in front of, like professional athletes at a Super Bowl news conference.
