Food shopping has changed a lot in my lifetime. When I was small there were not many supermarkets and much of the food was sold through small family-run outlets. I even remember visiting my grandparents in a small village in central Hampshire in the 1960s and there was a one-man butcher business, a two person grocer and a village post office. Most of the population worked on farms and many lived in tied cottages. Now the village is populated by rich finance people and the farmworkers commute from a nearby town. All village shops are long closed so people drive to the big supermarkets.

When in Italy I was impressed that although there are supermarkets the family run businesses still seem to thrive. Spain is similar with large supermarket chains like SuperSol and Eroski co-existing with little family retailers. We did a little shopping - mainly for lunch - in Cádiz.

We went into one "supermercado" which was a small affair but had an interesting delicatessen counter. Hams are taken very seriously and vary considerably in price. Later on our trip Mrs Oregano thought that she that the small 80 g portion of ham she had bought was expensive. We worked out it would be €70/kg!

The permanent covered market was a joy to see. It was full of little businesses each run by one to two people.

The building was organised into rows. There was a row of greengrocers, a row of butchers, a row of fishmongers, etc. We bought fruit from this seller. At home supermarkets import strawberries from Spain in order to offer them when they are not available from British suppliers. I generally avoid them as I do not think they taste good and because I do not like the homogenous year round offering of supermarkets. However the strawberries here tasted good; perhaps they lose their taste when travelling.

This butcher offered fresh meat, chorizo and hams. The produce looked very fresh and it was good to see the guy working with carcases - a change from seeing everything packaged on a supermarket shelf. In my town we have only one independent butcher, one baker and one greengrocer. Firms like Tesco have killed off the rest.

It was very pleasing to see small businesses like this thriving and competing. There were at least 5 suppliers in every section of the market.