The first part of this report presents a synthesis of very scattered sources from various disciplines on the possible impact of super-market development on food consumption and poor households. The second part presents the problem of food poverty in Vietnam, the specificity of food consumption in poor households, and the modernization of food distribution in this context. This part is based on secondary data (mainly from the Vietnamese General Statistical Office, GSO) and focus group discussions conducted with poor consumers through the collaboration of the Vietnam Consumers Association (VINASTAS) in 2003-2004. The third part is dedicated to the practices of purchasing food in poor households. The objective of this section is to respond to the question of, "what can the modernization of the food distribution sector bring to poor households in terms of new opportunities and constraints?". An original household survey was conducted on food purchasing practices: who buys, what, when, where, for how much, etc. The survey was conducted over the course of one week in Hanoi, Moc Chau (Son La Province) with 110 households taking part in each location (one visit per household to record purchases made during the last 24h). A similar study was conducted in Ho Chi Minh City, by the Faculty of Economics of Nam Long University, using the same questionnaire as Hanoi.