Although several previous studies have ascertained that smallholder farmers prefer informal markets, a few vertically integrated retail chains increasingly dominate South Africa’s agro-food supply chain. The onset of this trend has led to the demise of a large number of general dealers in favour of the sleek new stores. However, greengrocers and hawkers in the fresh produce market have proven to be resilient to this onslaught. This resilience is of interest to this study. The study used ‘Porter’s forces’ model and chain analysis to structure the research and seeks to describe and analyse the competitive situation by determining the relative competitive and strategic behaviour of retailers and to map the sector’s value flows. The main findings were that tridimensional competition was mostly in the middle-income areas. The low-income areas were dominated by hawkers while large chains dominated the high income areas and greengrocers were mostly confined to middle-income areas.