Margins, meanwhile, are fat for a reason: fresh food is always a high-risk business, which requires an intimate understanding of how customers' tastes vary according to store location and time of day.

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Musical tastes vary, so do cultural norms.

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But experience shows that retail mergers are tough to pull off and frequently end up destroying value partly because local customs and tastes still vary greatly, and partly because global synergies in purchasing and the sharing of best business practice have been slow to materialise.

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Tastes in bags vary around the country, says Bill Adler, founder and designer of WILL Leather Goods in Eugene, Ore.

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