I'm walking down the fruit and veg aisle of Worldwide Foods,
a supermarket here in Manchester in the northwest of England.
Now, what have we got here?
Mangoes from Pakistan, passion fruit from Colombia,
oranges from Spain, and fresh thyme all the way from Morocco.
On the aisles just over there, you've got tea from India, Sri Lanka, South Africa, China.
In the frozen aisle, fish steaks from Vietnam, mackerel from the Black Sea coast.
There is produce here from all over the world.
The UK spends billions of dollars importing approximately 46%,
almost half of the food it consumes.
To get to this store, products pass through many hands,
and in this episode of The Food Chain from the BBC World Service,
with me, Ruth Alexander,
we're focusing on one particular crucial pair of hands, that of the buyer.
Who are they?
What do they do?
And how do they do it?
Let's head back to the studio to find out.
Hello, everybody.
My name is Beatrice Muraguri.