Genesis and Evolution of the Food Self Service in the Atlantic Facade of Santa Catarina

Abstract

The purpose of this article is to describe and explain the business and market dynamism of the food self-service sector in the Atlantic Facade of the State of Santa Catarina. As a theoretical framework, we used the category of socio-spatial formation, by Milton Santos, combined with the perspective of small commercial production, by Armen Mamigonian, and articulated with the Theory of Long Cycles, created by Nikolai Kondratiev. It was found that the genesis of these companies is based on a process of small commercial production, considering that the accumulation of capital for a colony-selling system enabled the emergence, from the bottom up, of small capitals of Italian descendants in the forested Atlantic valleys of the Atlantic Facade. The expansion of the networks comes from the logic of building a national industrial park focused on durable consumer goods, which allowed the production of vehicles and the expansion of the road network. Thus, as a result of this expansion, the relative distances necessary for the logistical process have decreased. The main networks, therefore, organized themselves from different geoeconomic, business, spatial and logistical strategies to establish themselves in a scenario of increased competition, hindering, with rare exceptions, the insertion and consolidation of out-of-state networks in the dense Santa Catarina's urban system.