Photograph of the fruits section of El Rey Supermarket in Panama City, Panama. Photo by ©Omar Upegui R.
El Rey is one of the largest chains of supermarkets in Panama fiercely competing with Super 99 owned by Ricardo Martinelli, now President of Panama. One of the characteristics El Rey is its permanent fresh stock of high quality fruits and vegetables, albeit quite expensive.
Although photographs are now allowed inside the building, I was able to obtain this picture undercover depicting the multicolored section of tropical fruits. You can easily detect the prices of some of the merchandise. Let’s take a closer look at these prices:
- Mangos: $0.85/lb.
- Bananas: $0.31/lb.
- Avocados: $0.85/lb.
- Plantains: $0.35 each
I was surprised to see mangos being sold here and their excessive price. This delicious tropical fruit is so abundant in the country, most of them fall to the ground and rot. A few days ago I went to Banco General at Hato Pintado, and sadly saw about fifty mangos rotting on the ground. A creative entrepreneur should take advantage of this situation and promote mango marmalade or a similar product which I’m sure many of us would buy. Good Day.
