To get an idea of Wal-Mart Stores' growing impact on the food industry, you need look no further than Bentonville, Ark., where a rush of food companies hoping to cozy up to the retailer is helping to spawn one of the biggest real estate booms in the U.S.

Along a 30-mile corridor between Bentonville and Fayetteville, an archipelago of office parks sometimes called "Vendorville" accounts for more than 3,000 employees in a metro area of 300,000. Of the more than 450 Wal-Mart vendors that have opened offices in the area, 300 have more than 10 employees, according to local economic development officials -- up from 125 10-employee vendor operations located there just five years ago. The officials expect another 800 vendor offices within the next five years.

Food companies are driving the majority of recent growth in vendor office space, primarily because of the rapid expansion of Wal-Mart's combination food-and-mass merchandise supercenters, says Dina Howell, global marketing director for Procter & Gamble Co.'s Wal-Mart team, which is among the original vendors of Vendorville.

In short, if you work in the food industry in sales, marketing, logistics, finance , even R&D -- it's increasingly likely that you'll spend time in Bentonville at some point in your career. You may not be there permanently, but you may want to get your reservations in now at the Fayetteville Olive Garden, the chain's most requested new restaurant ever.

Wal-Mart has developed an insatiable appetite for food retailing in recent years, and shows no signs of letting up. The rapid rise of its Supercenters has not only made Wal-Mart the largest food store operator in the U.S., but also a major force with food processors.

The numbers are mind-boggling. Wal-Mart's overall sales are increasing at a mid-double-digit pace, and food sales are climbing even faster. In just two years, from 2000 to 2002, Wal-Mart sales climbed 32 percent, to $217 billion. But grocery, candy and tobacco sales from its Wal-Mart, Sam's and Neighborhood Markets grew almost half-again faster , by 46 percent , to $39.4 billion in the U.S. alone. Grocery sales as a percentage of overall sales at the anchor Wal-Mart Stores division, including conventional discount stores and supercenters, increased from 14 percent in 1998 to 22 percent in 2002.

As a result, big food companies find Wal-Mart becoming more important than ever. Such giants as Kraft Foods and General Mills reported that Wal-Mart accounted for more than 10 percent of their global sales last year , a first for those companies.

As Wal-Mart's importance grows, so, too, does its influence on the strategies of food companies. Retail consolidation in general, and Wal-Mart's growing food-store dominance in particular, are the chief drivers of consolidation in the food industry, according to a former chief executive of a food company that recently consolidated.

A $15 billion game

He sees a minimum of $15 billion in global sales as the amount required to compete most effectively , a level only a handful of food companies, including Kraft, Unilever, Nestle, Coca-Cola Co. and PepsiCo, have achieved. The scale isn't necessary to gain leverage in global procurement , something that still doesn't really occur despite the global scale of Wal-Mart and other players. "The reason," he says, "is that at $15 billion, you start having the scale to put a significant number of people in Bentonville."

Procter & Gamble, perhaps the original resident of Vendorville, has more than 300 employees there, with more stationed at Wal-Mart headquarters in Europe, Asia and Latin America. As the big food players bulk up, they're adding to their Wal-Mart teams as well.

As big an influence as it is, Wal-Mart stands to wield even greater clout in coming years as it expands its supermarket-size Neighborhood Markets and explores establishing a wholesale grocery division.