A SPATE of health scares and increasing demands on busy families' time are threatening to drive a Hong Kong institution - the wet market - into extinction.
Supermarkets capitalising on shoppers' growing concerns over food hygiene are promoting clean and fresh meat and vegetables, and rapidly stealing business from family stalls.
Retailers say markets cannot survive in their current form, and must modernise or die out within a decade.
'There's a fundamental change in the way people shop,' Wellcome marketing manager Doug Brown told the Post.
'Increasingly, consumers want more convenient foods because of time constraints. Going to a wet market and picking and choosing takes time.' ParknShop marketing director Andrew Brent said hygiene was the main factor.
'There's been a whole rash of health problems related to food and poor food hygiene, going back to bird flu and red tide, E. coli beef and pesticide on vegetables,' he said.
