On avoiding supermarkets...

Julysea

If it is incredibly easy, then please tell us how?? Without a car and with 2 small children in tow, I am very interested in knowing how to do food shopping ethically but just as practically as Waitrose delivery!

jellycat40

Sorry run that by me. How can Tesco = Evil?

At the end of the day they provide a service. it would be impossible to feed everyone in the utopian way you seem to think is best. Many, many people live on very tight incomes and need the buying power of the supermarkets to get the best price = lowest price possible.

Also can you imagine the queues at all these local little shops if that was all we had. They would have no way of carrying the stock needed for even one days shopping in the average size town. You would have worse problems for getting the goods to where they need to go. Most of these shops only have room for 3 tonne trucks to do deliveries so many, many more trucks on the road delivering to these tiny shops on a daily basis.

I can see the sense in forcing supermarkets to behave more ethically such as not ripping off third world countries and giving fair prices for goods and making them buy locally where possible but this will only happen by people using them and making their wishes heard. They do not care that one or two people in every 100 defect to small shops they do care if they constantly get requests for them to change their ways and get in or ban certain products, but it does take persistance for them to comply. We now have local fruit in our Tesco in the South West and this is due mainly to customer demand and a refusal to buy strawberries from the Canaries in the height of summer!!!!

Sorry for the rant but I think that you are being a bit black and white.

Louise

VickyM_2

jellycat40 wrote:

Also can you imagine the queues at all these local little shops if that was all we had. They would have no way of carrying the stock needed for even one days shopping in the average size town. You would have worse problems for getting the goods to where they need to go. Most of these shops only have room for 3 tonne trucks to do deliveries so many, many more trucks on the road delivering to these tiny shops on a daily basis.

Louise

um, but not that long ago - what, 30/40 years ago there were no supermarkets and I seem to think everyone coped? And yes, I know that's because our buying patterns have changed considerably - far less people grow their own vegetables, for instance, or make their own food - and people would make what they had go a lot further too. And most people (unless they've been reading the Money Saving Old Style board!) won''t do that these days.

Having said that, I absolutely agree with you that we should continue to put pressure on supermarkets to change (eg to supply local food). My local supermarket sells english apples, my local greengrocer doesn't, so I support the supermarket! Otherwise they won't continue to stock them, and everyone loses.

SusanCarter

Ken-Dodds-Hairy-Knodule wrote:

It is incredibly easy to live 'supermarket free', even in food deserts. You just have to make a bit of an effort (which is what puts off 90% of people).

Care to let us know how?

jellycat40 wrote:

At the end of the day they provide a service. it would be impossible to feed everyone in the utopian way you seem to think is best. Many, many people live on very tight incomes and need the buying power of the supermarkets to get the best price = lowest price possible.

Also can you imagine the queues at all these local little shops if that was all we had. They would have no way of carrying the stock needed for even one days shopping in the average size town. You would have worse problems for getting the goods to where they need to go. Most of these shops only have room for 3 tonne trucks to do deliveries so many, many more trucks on the road delivering to these tiny shops on a daily basis.

People did manage to live on low incomes before we had supermarkets. Supermarkets allegedly (I say allegedly as I don't want to get into a huge debate/discussion about it as it's a side issue) abuse their buying power so while they may be "helping" their low income customers, they are likely to be harming others who may already be worse off anyway.

Also before supermarkets everyone used to shop at local little shops. As they were local and little there were lots of them each supplying a small area (my mum tells me there used to be shop on alost every corner when she was a child) meaning that they didn't need huge lorries for deliveries. It was probably not as "convenient" as supermarkets and as I wasn't around I don't know what the queues were like but it did work in those days and if more people shopped in little shops then more little shops would probably open again.

As to which is "better" or not, that is to some extent subjective and a matter of opinion. The original poster was just asking for help as to how to shop in a way he/she feels is more ethical without breaking the bank. I hope it doesn't seem like I'm attacking you as that is not my intention but I thought you were being a little unfair to the OP.

jellycat40

Sorry I have not been able to post for a couple of days.

30-40 years ago there was not such a large population and there expectations were a lot lower than they are now.

However it was not my intention to attack anyone just to say that the OP should not feel too bad about sometimes having to use the supermarkets as they are necessary these days and the way to "get" them is from within.

Louise

Ken-Dodds-Hairy-Knodule

dazco wrote:

How can it be incredibly easy and yet require a little effort?

They aren't mutually exclusive you know.. Sex requires effort, but is incredibily easy..

Creating art is incredibly easy, but may require some effort to assemble your materials.

I've not bought from a supermarket for years. I use world food shops, wholefood shops, healthfood shops, food cooperatives, greengrocers etc. I also have a young daughter "in tow" (actually being carried) and another child on the way. I don't get why people always blame children for their choices..

I don't drive, and I live in one of the aforementioned "Food Deserts" (actually considered one of the worst areas in england with regards to food availability and nutrition levels).

As I said, just takes a little effort.

Julysea

It can't be such a 'food desert' if you have world food shops, food co-operatives, greengrocers etc within reasonable travelling distance! I certainly haven't! And I'm not 'blaming' my children for my food choices. The fact that wherever I go I ahve to carry or push or have walk, 2 children under 4 does limit how far I can travel and also limits how much I can carry on the return journey. I don't really think that sniping at each other and being smug about our own efforts, while knowing nothing about other people's lives and efforts, is really in the spirit of this forum. I was under the impression we were supposed to be helping each other?

Ken-Dodds-Hairy-Knodule

Julysea wrote:

It can't be such a 'food desert' if you have world food shops, food co-operatives, greengrocers etc within reasonable travelling distance!

To travel to a world food shop I have to travel approx 10miles on a train, to the health food shop 4miles on a bus, to the food coop 10mile on a train then a further couple of mile by bus. There is only the grocers that I can walk to.

And even if there were one each of those shops on my doorstep it is still a 'food desert'. In the country (albeit not ALL rural areas, but most) is where real food is readily available.

The only people 'sniping' are the ones that tell me it isn't possible after I post saying it is possible.

As I said earlier - it requires a bit of effort - but the quality of my families food is important to me - I would never feed any of us the stuff that comes from a supermarket shelf. Couple that with the fact that I don't beleive that anyone should be exploited for my food choices and the effort is worthwhile.

If it is the difference between another family somewhere being able to eat because I chose to shop at an ethical store or said family starving because they are being squeezed by a supermarket just so I can have conveniece then there isn't even a choice to make IMO.

Also, I wasn't "being smug" about my efforts (mostly because my efforts are minimal - I hardly do anything) - people asked how and I told them. If you don't like the answer, then fine but don't try to accuse me of being smug to justify that.


A

CannyAnnie_3

Off the subject slightly - but I cheered last week when the local news ran the story of the people of Darlington, who have roundly seen off an attempt by Tesco to build a superstore in the town centre. They would rather have their market, thanks.

For myself, I buy as little as possible from the supermarkets, and get a veggie box delivered regularly. But I do buy some things, I try to go at the times of day when they reduce the things so at least their profits are swollen by the least possible amounts. Tesco's worries me, I would rather have a choice of where I buy things and they seem to be trying to take over too many areas of my life.

BungleGirl

On the matter of rural areas I would have to disagree - they may have many farms around them but that does not mean that they grow/produce fruit/veg/meat and even if they do the rural areas have shops closing, post offices closing, they are losing their bus services. There has been a recent publication for government by the Commission for Rural Communities (think that is what it is called) detailing the huge problems faced by rural communities. If you ever read 'Inconvenience Food - the struggle to eat well on a low income' you will see that the difficulties faced by people in rural areas are equal to if not greater than those living in cities.