Globalization and the changing networks of food supply: the importation of fresh horticultural produce from Kenya into the UK Hazel R Barrett*, Brian W Ilbery*, Angela W Browne* and Tony Binns² Set within the context of the global food supply system, this paper examines the growing trade in fresh horticultural produce between Kenya and the UK. The links between UK retailers and Kenyan producers are investigated using the concept of the marketing chain. Two major chains are identified – wholesale and supermarket – and, whilst having no direct investment in Kenya, it is the supermarkets who control production there, through intermediaries who ensure that standards of quality and presentation are met. Importers play a crucial role in facilitating this trade, acting as a vital link between farmers and exporters in Kenya and supermarkets in the UK. The need for quality and traceability dictates that contractual arrangements are made predominantly with large-scale farms using productivist farming methods. The irony is that it is post-productivist demands by ‘new consumers’ in the UK that are encouraging these productivist horticultural systems in Kenya. key words globalization post-productivist transition Kenya horticultural exports marketing chains traceability *Geography Subject Group, Coventry University, Priory Street, Coventry CV1 5FB email: gex037@coventry.ac.uk ²School of African and Asian Studies, University of Sussex, Brighton BN1 9QN email: j.a.binns@sussex.ac.uk revised manuscript received 7 December 1998 Globalization of the horticultural trade During the 1990s, trade in fresh horticultural products has become increasingly global, a trend that has led to claims that the fresh fruit and vegetable sectors are ‘truly transnational’ (Bonnano 1994; Friedland 1994). Watts (1995) sug- gests that vertical integration is a necessary pre- requisite to globalization, and that this newly emerging trade is vertically integrated through contracts rather than through control and owner- ship of the means of production. Although there is considerable debate about the concept of globaliz- ation, it is clear that international trade in fresh horticultural products is increasing in scale and variety. This is a trend that has been encouraged by a liberalizing international and national regulatory framework, associated with GATT/WTO, IMF and World Bank policies, and has been further facili- tated by considerable improvements in communi- cations and packaging technologies. In 1990, it was estimated that trade in fresh fruit, vegetables and cut flowers was equivalent to 5 per cent of global commodity trade – roughly equivalent to that of crude petroleum (Jaffee 1994; Watts 1996; Watts and Goodman 1997). Trans Inst Br Geogr NS 24 159–174 1999 ISSN 0020-2754 © Royal Geographical Society (with The Institute of British Geographers) 1999