The rapid expansion of supermarket retailing combined
with the swelling ranks of middle class, urban consumers
with high disposable incomes and increasingly international tastes is generating strong local demand for exotic new foods, novel food presentation ideas, bottled soft drinks, fruit juices and waters, and convenience foods and ready-meals.

International suppliers are finding a large and eager audience for a huge array of Western-style products, as local stores take advantage of newly-liberalized trade regimes that enable them to source goods from around the world to meet accelerating demand.

At the same time, the country’s total food consumption
continues to grow strongly, with analysts forecasting a
further 23% growth in the three years to 2011.