Ghana's Shoprite Issues "Warning" to Bread-Grabbers!

Remember this post, where Shoprite bread patronisers seemed to be fighting over the bread? Well, I guess the management got enough and decided to provide consumers with a soft version of their riot act, exemplified by the picture I took here!

Am unsure what "pressures on bakery" actually mean, but I guess they simply got fed up of people buying--what??--ten loaves plus?!?!

Why Some Ghanaians Might Have Eschewed Accra Mall During Xmas 2009

Since we are all in the flashback kind of mode, I thought it fitting to do a re-dux of an Accra Mall post, with a slight difference. Here, I am hoping that the picture will do the proverbial and paint the required thousand words...

The picture shows the inside of Shoprite--and not for the first time. The twist is that it shows Shoprite with consumers...shopping, which would be a non-starter if it were not for the fact that there was more at the end of the corridor from which I snapped this.

More as in more shoppers! If the people in this picture were not enough to put anyone off shopping that day, I would not know what would be.

If I were a neophyte soldier, I might have buckled at the sight of the shopping crowd!

At the best of times, I do not fancy bumping into people shopping and having them pry into my basket(is that a human thing across cultures??)or worst of all, bumping into their baskets!

Least of all, at christmas...yet the inevitability of a new year meant stocking up, and kind of pretending you were getting rid of the old:-)

Take Your Ghanaian Fruit Pick!

Well, at least, I hope they are all Ghanaian fruit! I'm a sucker for colour, and as such, a sucker for a picture like this. Never mind that people might raise an eyebrow or two for taking pictures of fruit!

I like to paint my own world, so if that means being considered a FRUITcake, I'm up for that.

All in the service of blogging!

Shoprite's Fight (Bread) Club @ Least Once a Week!

This scene might probably belie the sheer physicality associated with usually-Friday evenings when one wants to buy a humble piece of bread at Shoprite, Accra Mall. I tell you: it's no mean feat, forming a bee-line to get fresh bread.

Many a time, I've joked that it's like forming a tro-tro line. I think it's frankly unacceptable. Shoprite doesn't have to keep customers waiting like this as if they'd die if they didn't get bread, should they?

Have a great weekend!

Fish and Chips, Ghanaian-Style

Far be it for me to say point-blank that most Ghanaians eat this classic food this way. Far from it!

Stuck on what to eat for lunch, I decided to make my own by getting the chips from Shoprite, and the fried fish from the local place I buy my sweet potatoes.

Too late to join me, I'm afraid: I'm almost done!;-)

Going Bananas...

...over so many things in Accra.

How about you?

Check out the Huge SHOPRITE Fish!

You could say that I'm being lazy by featuring and showcasing Shoprite stories. Perhaps I am. That said, I think the place offers a wide mosaique of emerging stories (especially on the types of food), which might not always make frontpage-news.

This big fish on the left is one of them. Just to show you that this is Ghanaian fish. At least that was the consensus among the Shoprite people I spoke to; I see no reason why they would lie.

I wouldn't want to imagine what that fish might look like at night!!

Those Shoprite Cartons (of Chicken) are From South Africa!

Ok, so it was never any real secret that a retailer like Shoprite was going to retail only Ghanaian goods. A good number of goods were always going to be flown in from South Africa.

This picture I took says little except when you check the narrative, which is very simple. After taking the picture of this guy offloading cartons to go prepare the very delicious chicken that many Ghanaians from all walks of life like to come to Shoprite to buy, I asked him where so many of these are coming from.

I guess you know the answer by now.

Frozen South African chicken flown to Ghana when there is a vibrant, albeit dying, poultry industry here!

Go figure!

PS. It's deeply ironic that in looking for a link about Ghanaian poultry, I should come across an article, entitled The Chilling Effect of Frozen Poultry Imports, written today, that looks at how much of a big business the poultry industry is in Ghana. There's an interesting quote that is great food for thought:

According to the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation, Ghana spends more than 1.2 billion dollars annually on rice imports, which rose from 121,000 metric tonnes in 1993 to 507,600 in 2002...

Ghana imported 26,000 tonnes of chicken in 2002, mostly from the European Union, where farmers receive generous subsidies. Two years later this figure had almost doubled, to about 40,000 tonnes. The annual import bill currently hovers around 30 million dollars.

Inside Shoprite, Ghana at Accra Mall

Shoprite opened its doors to Ghanaians on 1 November, but I failed to blog about it, believing it to be more of the same. I chaged my mind last night when I was there--armed with my camera--to take a picture for posting, naturally on this blog.

As you can probably see, this is the fruit and veg section, adjacent to the fast foods section. I could hardly believe there to be so many Ghanaians in town on a Sunday night around 8.30pm!!

More pictures of the mall are in the offing--so stay tuned!