Price fixing on sugar at Tesco and Asda?

a11waysindebt

mambury wrote: »

I gues I'm with you on this misty......

We can't all agree however if everyone had an understanding of where there food comes from, not just little plastic trays/bags from mr T/M/A etc etc, then a lot of things would improve for a lot of people.

Please, please , please Andrew, Allways, at the very least investigate and inform yourself on mass food production, food chains, food miles etc etc. Then at the very least you will have a valid arguement to back up your point of view.

Mambury

I'm more than happy to investigate the issue, could you pass me a link.:)

triticale

moonrakerz wrote: »

Supermarkets already import milk !
Last year it was reported by the BBC that the UK was importing a million litres of fresh milk a day from Holland & Belgium alone !
They will buy it where ever it is cheapest, if that is Poland, Bulgaria or North Korea, they DO NOT CARE. If they can get it to their store cheaper than they can get it from farmer Jones down the road - they will.
Fresh milk keeps better than fresh fruit/veg, that comes from all over the globe.

When all the UK milk producers have been driven out of business and living standards/costs in Poland, Bulgaria or North Korea have risen dramatically - so will the price of YOUR milk.

The BBC were talking utter rubbish, The UK actually imports more like 50 million litres PER YEAR. This only accounts for less than 1% of total UK milk supply! Furthermore, most of this is used in processing to make cheese and other dairy products anyway.

Do you have a link to the BBC story? I would like to have words with that journo. :mad:

Mistymaid

Allways, there are loads of books, articles and internet sites on the subject if you want to go peek. Sorry, I can't provide you with specific books to look up - Oh, sorry, I can - I was going to say I haven't read that many but I have read Need or Greed (will look up the author for you later)
You can also research Peak Oil, Monsato food production, and George Monbiot provides a few good ones when you are looking at corporate sponsorship in such issues and their power over governments.

I do of course realise you probably won't investigate the issue - after all you're quite happy as you are - but others may be genuinely interested.

Triticale - you wouldn't like to provide your link for the figures before asking someone else for theirs would you, because that sounds awfully like a DEFRA comment from where I'm sitting and considering we nearly had a very drastic milk shortage in this country in the summer that hardly made it to the news, it also seems way off the mark.

triticale

Mistymaid wrote: »

Triticale - you wouldn't like to provide your link for the figures before asking someone else for theirs would you, because that sounds awfully like a DEFRA comment from where I'm sitting and considering we nearly had a very drastic milk shortage in this country in the summer that hardly made it to the news, it also seems way off the mark.

Apologies, my initial figure was based on provisional data. Hansard contains the most up to date figures (column 901W): *Grrr, can't post links. If you google 'Hansard 901W milk' it should be the top link, dated 14th May 2009.*

So at 134.1 million litres, still only around 1% of UK supply, and certainly not a million litres per day.

I am highly distrustful of the BBC and other media after seeing them twist and abuse statistics many times. Having found the article, I can't see any kind of source for their claim, despite the figure being quoted all over the internet.

I'm fully aware how dire times are for the UK dairy industry, it saddens me having lived part of my childhood on a dairy farm. Something does need to be done, on that I think we agree.

Personally I think in general the UK's attitude to where food comes from is disgraceful. Food is not cheap to produce, there is always a cost somewhere.

Mistymaid

Thanks for that I will look it up later but having a heck of a day that is getting 'heckier' by the minute.

We are in agreement on two things - I don't trust the BEEB anymore either!

Mistymaid

Found it.
Also found the BEEB report (it does indeed state 1ml litres per day) but other than a quote by Anna Hill, Radio 4, doesn't give a source for it's figures.
Also found a breakdown of milk consumption on Dairy co and they say consumption for this year stands at 5 billion litres (worked out that in this case 1 billion = 1 thousand million) but it also includes soya milk (does it come from a cow?) and something called 'modified milk.' Sat here wondering what that could be ...

So basically on one side we have the BEEB's figures and on the other the Government's - not got a hope in hell of getting to the real facts then!

triticale

Mistymaid wrote: »

Found it.
Also found the BEEB report (it does indeed state 1ml litres per day) but other than a quote by Anna Hill, Radio 4, doesn't give a source for it's figures.
Also found a breakdown of milk consumption on Dairy co and they say consumption for this year stands at 5 billion litres (worked out that in this case 1 billion = 1 thousand million) but it also includes soya milk (does it come from a cow?) and something called 'modified milk.' Sat here wondering what that could be ...

So basically on one side we have the BEEB's figures and on the other the Government's - not got a hope in hell of getting to the real facts then!

Lol indeed!! :rotfl:

However, bear in mind that the Gub'mint's figures come directly from VAT returns collected by HMRC - there is very little room for 'embellishing' the figures at that level - in fact any concerns regarding inaccuracies should be with traders, rather than those evil civil serpants.

andrewmp

Mistymaid wrote: »

Take sugar for instance - we actually don't need it to function, and certainly not the white stuff which has nothing in it apart from sweetness. Yet we, (and I include me in this) have a high demand for it.

.

I've bought one small bag of sugar in the last 3 years and I still have most of it left. I had no idea how much sugar cost.

andrewmp

Mistymaid wrote: »

The pound isn't doing too bad at the moment Andrew and certainly a lot better compared to this time last year, although of course it's also being devalued by the extra money being printed.
!

Against what currency?

Mistymaid

Dollar, Canadian Dollar ...
this isn't just going to turn into one of those inane discussions Andrew where you tell me none of this affects you personally so, so what, the rest of the world can go jump (because if we go jump, believe me, we take you with us) or, where you ignore all the relative factors and rush out over the net trying to pick out others. Your graph isn't measuring any one currency value against the other, it's just showing how much each currency has fallen - and we know they have fallen, the point was that considering the path it's trod over the past year or so it's risen from its low and strengthened again. Personally, I believe that after this propping up of the pound has worn its weary path the pound is going to fall a lot, lot further anyway.

To be honest I'd love to know why someone who doesn't buy sugar is even participating in a thread on it in the first place?