It's a Wal-Mart world

For the small group of women entrepreneurs, it was a dream come true. One of the world’s biggest super market chains – as part of its much-vaunted community initiative – wanted to sell the co-operative’s collection of natural beauty products, made from nopal and xoconostle or prickly pear, cacti that grow in abundance around one of Mexico’s most important ancient pilgrimage sites – the pyramids of Teotihuacan.

But now the women believe they have been duped by Wal-Mart, the US-based retailing giant which, they say, desperately needed to portray itself as a good citizen after it caused national outrage by building a new store within the boundaries of the Teotihuacan archeological zone, a 2000-year-old Unesco World Heritage site whose name means “The Place Where Gods Were Made” and which receives more than two million visitors a year.

“Before the store opened, Wal-Mart asked us to start making the products – 200 a month – as soon as possible,” a member of the co-operative told the Sunday Herald. “We are only a small outfit and this was an important deal for us, we had to take out a loan to get it all done on time. When we finished, we tried to contact them to arrange delivery but they never answer our calls and have never paid us. We have tried to contact them for months but nobody wants to help us. Wal-Mart said that it would promote regional producers in the new store. We realise now that they were just using us so they can say on their website that they are working with the community.”
  Sunday Herald article

I have no comment. There are just so many things that could be said.