Position and development of the food independent trade and its prediction on Czech market[Postavení a vývoj nezávislého obchodu s potravinami a jeho predikce na českém trhu]

The paper deals with a problem of independent trade in Czech Republic which means small and medium sized retail and wholesale enterprises without capital linkage to big companies abroad. It is especially focused on Czech food sellers trying to compete against transnational companies entering and operating on Czech market. One of possibilities how to face geographically and financially strong subjects is vertical cooperation and creation trade alliances. It means joining individual small and medium sized wholesalers and retailers into one association representing all members. Main advantages of these cooperative structures are lower purchase costs due to common negotiation with suppliers and co-financing of some activities (for example promotion). It is very important to sustain the diversity of retail market because of ensuring and forming competitive environment and offering the miscellaneous forms of retail to final consumers. That is why the main goal of this paper is to find out last changes and contemporary position and structure of the food independent trade alliances with prediction of future development. It is necessary to mention the fact that data is quite difficult to gain for this purpose. There are yearbooks of Czech and Slovak trade where some important information are published namely sales of food trade alliances are used like main indicator to describe and predict their development. A suitable statistic method has to be selected to fulfil the stated goal. Time series and interlay with trend curve seem like the most suitable instrument. In case of individual trade alliances the linear or logarithmic function will be used according to course of sales.