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The expansion of the food trade in West Africa has given new impetus to longdistance trading, which is now controlled by wholesalers established in the larger centres for consumer products. This article examines the situation in Abidjan and identifies three factors explaining the capacity of wholesale trade to develop along with the growth in demand for foodstuffs: the forms of organisation of the market, the organisational innovation at the level of traders as well as at that of commercial companies, and in this process, the importance of controlling the urban area. The forms of social organisation which wholesalers tend to adopt in the contemporary period have evolved in response to constraints in the delivery of fresh food, to the reorganisation of urban areas, but also to the need to obtain the economic control over the markets. The relationships between peers in particular have been determining in establishing ascendancy over the urban space.