“It is worth remembering the context in which Rockefeller’s managers operated, the Cold War that split the world into the blocs of the two superpowers of the time, the United States and the Soviet Union. (…).
It was in these circumstances that IBEC‘s project was set, which declared its motives also philanthropic in the advertisements it produced to make itself known to the inhabitants of the neighbourhoods where it set up its first supermarkets. The posters read: groceries are the same for everyone. It sounded like a socialist slogan (…)’. (p. 48).
“(p. 48) ‘The Americans also taught the Italians how to implement a commercial policy. In the first years of opening supermarkets they had to react to the protests of small shopkeepers (…),
and they started a promotional campaign in the newspapers that emphasised both the quality factor and savings, comparing the average prices recorded by the City of Milan’s statistical office with the much cheaper prices charged in their own supermarkets. (…)
This was made possible by a policy of directly importing certain key goods, such as Argentinian beef, frozen fish, tinned fruit from South Africa, veal and certain types of cheese from Denmark. Rockefeller offers shark fins headlined a newspaper in the days before the opening of the first supermarket, listing the many exotic delicacies – there were even swallow’s nests and kangaroo soups – that could be found in Viale Regina Giovanna ‘ (pp. 64 – 65).
