An important service that middlemen provide is reducing the number of contacts consumers must make in buying their assortment of goods. Through history middlemen have been considered an essential and productive element of an economy and generally have been well thought of by society.
Efficiency measures the ratio of output to input.
The marketing margin is an excellent measure of the efficiency of food marketers. In food marketing, coordination by administered channel has been decreasing relative to coordination by an open-market system. Countervailing power is the power held by major players such as retailers. Cooperative solutions are possible in a zero-sum game. One of the reasons for vertical integration is to facilitate the grading function.