Then & Now | Democratic now, supermarkets in Hong Kong once served the English-speaking elite
- Until the 1960s, Dairy Farm supermarkets were for the elite, with English-speaking staff and dress codes
All over the world, a wander through local supermarket aisles offers fascinatingly unexpected insights into everyday consumer tastes. From locally produced seasonal foodstuffs to imported items sourced from across the globe, supermarkets allow glimpses into the broader cultures and societies they serve.
But like other universal aspects of life now taken for granted, well-stocked supermarkets – in Hong Kong and elsewhere – are relatively recent innovations.
These days, local supermarkets are among the single greatest social levellers found in any community. From society’s wealthiest members to the less affluent, virtually everyone now sources at least some of their daily needs from these establishments. But until recent decades, this was not the case.
The earliest prototype supermarkets began to appear in maritime Asia’s port cities just before World War I, and then burgeoned in the hectic decade of runaway global prosperity and technical innovation that characterised the Roaring Twenties.
As was usual during that period, American entrepreneurialism led the way. Across the region, long-established trading companies with pre-existing import-export divisions swiftly moved into expanded retail distribution of consumer goods.
