i AN ASSESSMENT OF TOMATO PRICE VARIABILITY IN LUSAKA ...

supply areas. Three price observations are collected and recorded each hour, and the
mean of the three prices is taken as the hourly tomato price. This is particularly the case
for the price data on entering volumes.
Retail outlets where price data is collected are Shoprite (Cairo/Kafue roads), Spar (Down
town), and Melissa (Matero) supermarket chains, and Chilenje open air retail market. All
these data have been collected since January 2007; however, in generating the subsector
map, only data for the one year period January to December 2007 was used.
2.1.3 Data on Procurement Systems
Data on the procurement systems of selected retail outlets and FFV processors was
obtained from interviews with the procurement managers of these institutions. The
interview guide used for these interviews is presented in Appendix 1. This guide took the
form of a checklist questionnaire with a combination of closed and open ended questions.
Open ended questions were included in order to get the broadest possible insights into the
nature of the procurement systems these actors have adopted. Some of the information
solicited from the interview included what FFV they trade in, who their FFV suppliers
are, and more specifically, who their tomato suppliers are, the geographic origin of the
tomatoes from their suppliers, the quantity and specification requirements of the
tomatoes, and their tomato pricing policy. The interview was conducted on three large
independent supermarket chains; Shoprite (Fresh mark), Spar and Melissa, and the two
main FFV processors in the country; Freshpikt and Rivonia.
8 Entering volumes are those entering the respective markets between 6am and 1pm; starting volumes refer
to the volumes of tomatoes entering between the end of the previous day and 6am, while ending volumes
are those sitting in the market still unsold at noon each day.
12