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March 5th, 2006

Supermarkets

A challenge from Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall in the Guardian:

For me, then, the true tipping point will come when significant numbers of consumers begin to say to the supermarkets: enough of your bullying tactics to farmers and producers, your misleading labelling and spurious nutritional information, enough of the systematic suffering of livestock in intensive systems, driven by you, as you push the price points lower and lower, enough of your dirty, polluting, wasteful food miles, and your outrageous, undemocratic flouting of planning law and the opinions of local people.

The way to be effective is to change the way you shop. You don’t have to stop going to supermarkets, but you do have to take from their shelves only those products you believe are honestly and ethically traded, transparently labelled, environmentally sustainable, and not abusive of either animals or people. And go elsewhere for the rest.

I agree with what he’s saying, though I wonder whether ‘going elsewhere’ is still the right thing to do if one has to make extra ‘food miles’ in driving to get there.

Hugh’s own site is Rivercottage.net.

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7 Responses to “Supermarkets”


  1. Chris says:

    Food miles is one of those issues. Living in Gloucestershire we can get fresh food from the farmers without having to go too far. In fact, I tend to be driving around anyway so I can pop in without adding any miles.

    We’ve got a good local scheme that covers the area from Bristol to Ross-on-Wye. It’s a farming co-op and they deliver the food to you. Given the number of people using the scheme it really helps to cut down the miles.

    So my beef travels 5 miles instead of flying over from Brazil. Don’t you just hate it when your lunch is better travelled than you!

    March 5th, 2006 at 11:48 am
  2. Tim says:

    I guess something changing the way we shop goes wider than just changing the shops we shop in.

    It might mean trying to co-operatively shop with others – so instead of three people each making trips to three different shops – people either join up for the whole trip – or each take on a shop and three shopping lists and share the shopping…

    ….

    March 5th, 2006 at 12:38 pm
  3. Jack the Lass says:

    Good points all. I’m lucky in that “going elsewhere” is relatively easy for me – my nearest supermarket is one that I really don’t like so I try to avoid it anyway (the nearest one I do like is 8 miles away so I rarely go unless I need to visit other stores in the same retail park), but I have a fortnightly farmers’ market in the park a couple of minutes walk away, and there’s a lovely greengrocers shop near uni so I can stock up on fresh veg and fruit and only venture into the supermarket when absolutely necessary. I feel very smug, but also have much much better tasting food despite not being the greatest cook.

    March 5th, 2006 at 12:55 pm
  4. Serena says:

    Another good thing to do is something like a vegetable box scheme – eg my family and I get boxes from Riverford and River Nene (different parts of the country). Organic vegetables, mostly UK, delivered to the door (on a trip to deliver to lots of other people as well, of course).

    See http://www.riverford.co.uk/ and http://www.rivernene.co.uk/

    (No, they don’t pay me, I just like their veg!)

    March 5th, 2006 at 4:23 pm
  5. Ben Gallagher says:

    I think that supermarkets should only be avoided by those who can afford to avoid them. As a student, I don’t think that I should be made to feel guilty because I shop at the local supermarket. I’m sre food from other places is nicer (in fact, I know it is) but food from supermarkets is always going to be cheaper.

    If there weren’t any supermarkets, there would be complaints about it. Instead, I think it should be the supermarkets responsibility to ensure that the local produce providers are supported. However, if I knew how to make them do that – I don’t think I would be sat here in my student house thinking about the coursework I have to write…!

    March 5th, 2006 at 11:44 pm
  6. Rob says:

    Interestingly, supermarket food isn’t always cheaper. Mostly, you can buy fresh veg cheaper from a local greengrocer than from the “big four”. There are other examples too, but these will vary depending on where you are in the country, but don’t assume that the supermarket is always going to be cheaper.

    Dave, you might increase the milage that you do if you go to other places, but you will almost certainly drastically cut the total food miles of your product.

    March 6th, 2006 at 8:28 am
  7. Chris says:

    Our family also uses the River Nene scheme, and I very much recommend it. Locally grown,organic fruit and veg delivered weekly to our door! Delicious too:)

    March 6th, 2006 at 4:59 pm