ABSTRACT
Throughout the 1950s and 1970s, agricultural commodities were procured, distributed, and sold by the governmental authorities, while prices were set up by the authorities. In the 1980s, processed foods were limited, as households prepared simple meals from rice, noodles, raw produce, and meat. Distribution was then limited and inefficient. But since the mid-1980s food marketing has become one of the first sectors in China in which restructuring of SOEs was effectively translated into growing privatization: as urban food expenditures increased, a larger number of players entered the food market, from small entrepreneurs to SOEs and JVs.1
