In the 1980's, supermarkets arid food service industry companies made great progress, becoming leading channels of food distribution. This paper presents a statistical analysis and a case study of large-scale supermarkets and food service industry companies in order to analyze their marketing characteristics and current trends in perishable food distribution. The results of this study are summarized as follows: (1) Supermarkets and food service industry companies have been selecting vendors in view of efficiency. (2) Main vendors selected by supermarkets and food service industry companies are not producers and agricultural cooperatives but wholesale dealers. Advanced supermarkets with well equipped facilities for distribution and processing tend to lay in stock from large-scale producers directly. In any case, they attach much importance to procuring large quantities and maintaining the stability of both quantity and quality. (3) Although computer-based, point-of-sale systems have been introduced in a lage proportion of supermarkets and food serviceindustry companies, they have not had much effect on their stocking of perishable foods. It can be concluded that at present, supermarkets and food service industry companies base their marketing strategy on mass selling and mass stocking, therefore, they still maintain economy of mass consumption.