Do supermarkets have a responsibility to be green/ethical?

SusanCarter

Ken68 wrote:

Just have to sort out the salt problem, sugar problem and pesticide problem, and the oap's rushing about problem.... :-))

I once went to the supermarket at 7.30 on a Saturday morning and found I almost had trolley rage because it was jam packed with pensioners.

wishingonastar_3

in the interests of fairness, there should be a neither box also.

SusanCarter

wishingonastar wrote:

in the interests of fairness, there should be a neither box also.

Good point. Unfortunately I can't find any way of changing it. Perhaps anyone who thinks neither is responsible could post saying who they think is responsible.

wishingonastar_3

personally i think both are responsible, the stores should use less packaging, however if we all buy things with less packaging, the stores should in theory all soon catch on.

se999

Aren't we missing out the politicians, government and legislation. Theoretically they are there to represent the needs & interests of the citizens. Therefore they too should be working to protect the people and the environment they live in.

Ken68

se999 wrote:

Aren't we missing out the politicians, government and legislation. Theoretically they are there to represent the needs & interests of the citizens. Therefore they too should be working to protect the people and the environment they live in.

Keeping business in business and workers at work (therefore paying taxes, and thus enabling things like Blairforce One) comes way before consumer interests.
Business and government and probably also the trade unions won't take a blind bit of notice until things are in place for them to make a buck.
The consumers and environmentalists need to make an example of some one. Like everyone boycotting imported (loadsa food miles )produce .

SusanCarter

Ken68 wrote:

Keeping business in business and workers at work (therefore paying taxes, and thus enabling things like Blairforce One) comes way before consumer interests.

:rotfl: :rotfl:

Contains_Mild_Peril

SusanCarter wrote:

(Any suggestions of where I can get a shopping trolley like my grandparents used to use would be welcome!)

Mine's falling to bits after several years of service (it was secondhand when I got it and I've used it and abused it for years), so I'm on the lookout too! I think Argos used to do them, not sure if they still do. I've never bought a brand new one, though. I'm on my 3rd secondhand shopping trolley since I got married and left my dad's house nearly 14 years ago.
Annoyingly, staff at my local Morrisons keep packing my stuff into plastic bags (heavy and squashy things in the same bag to make repacking more awkward) without asking, even when they can see I've got my trolley with me.
I reuse small carrier bags (e.g. Morrisons) as bin liners for waste paper bins (which in my house also get fruit peel and ashtray contents emptied into them, so liners are essential), and keep bigger ones (e.g. Farmfoods) for car boot sales and stuff.

lynzpower

Ive only just sat down to read this one, and I am in the both camps. ( a few generalisations in here, but you'll get what I mean)

As some of you may know my dad was a greengrocer for many years in manchester area, and now he works for a company importing & distributing fruit & veg to supply to trade.

My dad ran two very successful shops sold both businesess with a hefty turnover, healthy profits and a high cost of goodwill. He got out fearing the supermarkets taking greater shares in the 80s.

I have often considered following in his footsteps, and have looked into it at fair length from time to time. there are a few other issues that blur this argument for me and its not one vs the other for me.

1. Shop rents & leases. Seen the price of rents these days? A quick nose on the web, shows that the lease & busness rate alone in a london GG is about 300 a week, before other overheads (wages, utilities, stock,finance to buy the business, running vehicles, income tax, bookeeping, etc).

It is clear to me that the high st, is dominated by those who can turnover & profit enough to keep these businesses going. I read dixons pulled out ofi ts Kensington high st location as it could no longer afford the commercial rents. What hope for the sole trader? I believe strongly the government has to look at more flexible & imaginitve ways of keeping londons high streets diverse, but until they do, small traders are kept out of the market. i dont know what its like elsewhere but manchester rents are going very much the same way

2. Product supply.

Small traders certainly do not equate with "ethical" no matter what many may think ( farm shops being an exception and specifics say organic shops like fresh & wild) Go into your local greengrocers. I bet you wont find fair trade bananas there, I bet the strawbs are spanish much of the time, I bet most other produce is produced overseas. as I said, my dad imports from overseas,as well as the firm distributing UK produce when either a) there is enough of it b) it can be brought to the distribution point easily/ well.

If you are a greengrocer, you buy whatever the market dictates ( unless of course you are a specialist trader, Ill leave those out of it for now). If UK strawbs are 70p a unit, or spanish at 30p a unit, most sole traders will go for the cheaper product, easier to shift, minimiising waste of course they have to do so to try to pay the rent/lease/overheads. the customer is certainly not sophisticated enough to be differentiating in this way, I have had lots of discussions about food miles with my dad, he says its just not something thats affecting his business at all yet.

Supermarkets at the least do label produce so those who care about food miles can say, no Im not having those green beans from guatemala, I wont buy this I wont buy that. Can you say the same about your green grocer?

Yes, minimising packaging is important and most GGs still use paper bags- applauded.

Distibution wise, tescos et al will have one big van distributing veg adn it will drive from store to store. the sole trader makes daily trips to the wholesaler market. Emissions issues are still prevelent in both camps.

Can the sole trader manage to use solar power for shops? Or recycle carrier bags? ( yes some do, applauded) Can the sole trader keep stock refridgerated in the same way supermarkets can (no)

Anyone who has been close to a GG knows the amount of waste can be astronomical for all above reasons again, is this sustainable? No. My dad used to sell his waste for pence to a pig keeper locally.but this is unlikely to be something that could be rolled out for all sole traders, and the loss he was making was unreal.

Local councils charge sole traders for recylcing cardboard boxes and the like, again, I fear this is another reason to keep sole traders out of the marketplace. or to place yet more financial pressures over traders who choose to act sustainably. Dad says a lot of traders burn boxes to avoid paying the tax on collection.

Yes, you will tend to get a good service with your GG, but a lot of the time the stock is substandard and old. Its certainly no fresher to buy F&V at a greengrocer, believe me. they come on the same plane much of the time as the supermarket stuff

Waitrose and co-op are part of creative schemes in developing countries to encourage fair and sustainable production. Most stock bought from your local GG wont have come anywhere near sustainablility.

Most supermarkets manage to stock a wide range of organic produce, your local GG probably wont.

this has turned into an essay of course, but just to really demonstrate that is is certainly not a them vs us argument. the government has to play a bigger part in this, I reckon by reducing business rates, and there should be some discussion on import miles, which of course will reduce the effectiveness of the small trader.

Lynz

ti1980

Thanks for the insight Lynz. It was quite long but a very enjoyable read and some things you just can't get across in a couple of sentences if you want to provide a balanced view with proper facts so thanks for spending the time on that post.