one womans quest to takle over-packaging...join me!

margaretclare

I agree with Ben84 above. Not only about the packaging, the treatment of fruit and veg, the unreliable quality, but the distance most supermarket products have to travel.

We're about to go out to a farm shop this morning soon, and stock up the freezer with meat. If we buy one of their free-range chickens we know it won't be sitting in a little plastic dish and then wrapped in plastic, nor will their sausages.

trader_girl

I always brought all of my fruit and veg from supermarkets and by the end of each week had been throwing about a third of it into the waste bin becase of it rotting quickly this had gone on for years as the norm. Then we opened our shop in our local village short of time one day i nipped into the greengrocers which i had passed by for 25 years (i live very locally!) the difference was amazing.. by the end of the week we had actually eaten all of the fruit and veg, a first for us, due to the fact it had retained its freshness.
The local greengrocers is a little bit more expensive than the supermarkets but none of the food is ever thrown away so i am in fact saving money and eating well.

ShockingPink

C_Ronaldo wrote: »

the thing is ive seen cucumber not wrapped in plastic in european supermarkets so why cant we do the same

The Co-Op is the only British supermarket to sell "naked" cucumbers - they started doing it recently.

I buy most of my fruit and veg from my local greengrocer. They use brown paper bags, which I save and reuse; you can get about 4 uses from each before they start to tear. When I do buy loose produce in Tesco I use my little brown bags - sometimes I even get extra green Clubcard points

A_fiend_for_life

Gigervamp wrote: »

With regards to buying loose veg in Mr T's, I noticed the other day that the loose baking potatoes were about 40p a kilo MORE than the ones in the prepacked bags!

That is surprising - it used to be the other way around. Great for charging 'wealthy' singletons more but it also means the elderly living alone pay more too.

I read something on the artificial atmosphere keeping food 'fresh for longer'. As the bags are sealed they keep the water in the vegetables so they don't go limp. Though the vitamins have long been oxidized as they get dipped in a chlorinated solution first because of fears of food poisoning.

As tests have shown that the vitamin content of such food is negligible it does make me wonder what they think they are doing. I wonder if we buy more vitamin pills as a nation to compensate or more so called super foods at a premium rate.:eek:

sphrp2

Lidl's cucumbers (near me, at least) are "condom"-free.

Jojo_the_Tightfisted

As my daughter has a major thing for cucumber in her sandwiches every day, I found that the nearest Turkish Food Centre (a 25min bus ride away) sells Lebanese cues. They aren't waxed or wrapped and as they are about 6 inches long, you buy about 6 and you just use half each day, meaning they stay fresher (especially as I got an fridge ioniser last year which really works).

The TFC also sells everything else loose - so you can buy single chillies, sunripe tomatoes that still smell of the plant (for the same price the supermarkets charge for basics), ramiro peppers for the same as supermarkets charge for basic greens. AND red cherries loose, so you don't have to spend a fiver on stuff that is mouldy underneath the top layer.

Moving down the shop, bags of pasta are sold for pennies and tend to be the more specialised shapes that you pay more for usually, jars of tomato puree go for less than the usual price of a little tube, and things like frozen artichoke hearts or less than a pound.

We haven't even got to the bakery section - baklava - mmmmmmmmmmm - fresh bread sold in paper bags - mmmmmmmmm - all you have to do if you're near one is be prepared for the packaging to be in a mixture of English, French and Turkish. But in these places the staff tend to be from all over Europe so everyone speaks English and will happily translate from the limited amount of packaging for you if you need help. I've also got some cracking recipes from the guys there.

OK, rave over - not everyone is near one of these places, but if more people use them, perhaps there would be more!

A_fiend_for_life

Don't have a TFC but there is a Chinese supermarket 30 minutes away which is really good for exotic fruit (rambutan, durian, mangosteen), palm sugar, dried shitake. They're also good for thai food, nam pla, chilli sauce, mild and strong soy sauce, chillie paste, coconut milk (about 40p a tin)*, dried coconut blocks 35p. Not forgetting Mae Ploy brand of chillie pastes highly concentrate 1kg tubs for £2.90.

A_fiend_for_life

moonrakerz wrote: »

These are the same European countries that pushed through an EU Law about not selling "bent" cucumbers ! Which they are now "considering" repealing.

and bananas I hope!

Though British supermarkets should also consider that quality testing British apples by taking around 200 photographs and analysing them for 17 to 19% 'blush' is counter productive and wasteful. Somewhere between 30 and 40% are rejected.

Altarf

moonrakerz wrote: »

These are the same European countries that pushed through an EU Law about not selling "bent" cucumbers ! Which they are now "considering" repealing.

There is no EU Law against selling "bent" cucumbers. All the law does is define what is a 'class 1' cucumber, and there is nothing at all in the law to stop the shops selling 'class 2' cucumbers.

So perhaps you ought to be asking why the supermarkets don't stock 'class 2' fruit and veg.

And as an aside, the EU regulations on cucumber classification are based on the old British rules. But never let the facts stand in the way of a good 'bash the EU' story.

A_fiend_for_life

Hi altarf,

'fraid it is true, I remember the law coming out, here's the article from the telegraph.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/2453204/Bent-banana-and-curved-cucumber-rules-dropped-by-EU.html

The idea was to improve packaging efficiency.!?

I wonder if any one got done for selling bent bananas?