are you losing faith in the food industry ?

Willpower?

Gingernutmeg wrote:

I have little hope that there's much of a future for small independent food traders in most of the UK. Not only are they being taxed out of the market, there just isn't the support from most of the general public.

I hope that isn't true, but I fear that overall it is. I would love to buy fresh bread from a local shop, but there has never been a bakers where I live. There is a butcher, who I use fairly often, but she doesn't sell organic meat.

I also find that the opening hours of smaller shops make it VERY difficult for a single person with a 9-5 job to get to them.

lil_me

You're right about the opening times, for a lot of people supermarkets are the only option because of that, our farm shop I use is only open 2 days a week, but that's a Friday and Saturday so it isn't too bad.

Quasar

Anyway, if the worst comes to the worst, there's this:

Debt_Free_Chick

Willpower? wrote:

I also find that the opening hours of smaller shops make it VERY difficult for a single person with a 9-5 job to get to them.

I remember as a kid going shopping with my mum every Saturday morning. The local convenience store (Masons!) was about 1/4 mile away. We then used to walk a further mile to the greengrocers and then the butcher on the way back.

We've come to depend on being able to shop whenever it suits us - I used to shop on the way home from work, to leave my weekends free. Now, I just plan my week differently so that I have Saturday morning to shop locally if needed. (However, I'm spoiled as I work from home so I can really do my shopping whenever it suits me )

I do understand how easy it is to get used to supermarket opening hours, but would it be so difficult to leave an hour free on Saturday mornings for the butcher, market or farm shop

COOLTRIKERCHICK

when i was younger..... shops were not allowed to open on sundays......

and shops that were classed as supermarkets were about the size of a big spar... or local convenience store....

food shopping was allways done on a saturday... morning.. with a visit to liptons for tins etc.. then to the market for meat..... bread and milk used to be delivered every day...

my grandparents.. never drove.... and they used to shop at the local stores everyday.....

in one generation ( 20 yrs ) the supermarkets have just dominated the whole food/shopping industry.....its soooo quick......


where ...what i can understand... after the war it was a government thing to produce bulk food.......now its the supermarkets that wants the intensive reared...grown bulk food for profit....

Gingernutmeg

Willpower? wrote:

I also find that the opening hours of smaller shops make it VERY difficult for a single person with a 9-5 job to get to them.

I agree with you about that ... but it's something that's so difficult to find a solution to.

The problem is that unless little shops get more trade, they can't take on more staff and increase opening hours ... but unless they increase opening hours, they can't increase the trade ... but then again local communites often don't support the local businesses enough to make it viable. It's not just staff, it's gas, electricity, taxes ... It's difficult, as taking on a small business (especially a rural one) is so much more than just a 'job' but nobody can work all day, every day. My parents have a real problem trying to find staff too - the last vacancy in the shop (for a baker) was advertised for over four months, and the only applicant was a Pole who sadly we couldn't take on because he didn't have the necessary visas ... I just feel that little shops, and the work that their owners put in, is often taken so much for granted. My mum, for example, starts work at 2am every morning (apart from Sunday), has a three hour break in the morning and then works again until 5 - and then she has to deal with paperwork etc etc. It's a very hard way to make a living and I really can't blame her for becoming disillusioned, especially when she's criticised for not being open for long enough ... (and we sell bread from the bakehouse from about 4am lol - so they can't say the shop's not open early )

Also, I think that we have a strange attitude to little shops in this country. I've visited France a lot and nobody expects the village bakery to be open all day ... they buy their bread fresh in the morning and factor that into the day. We seem (in this country) to prefer convienience over quality ... There's also the fact that small businesses get so much more support in other countries - in the vast majority of the UK, it simply isn't possible to sustain a shop that only opens for a few hours a day.

I think there are lots of people out there who are doing great things for the British food industry ... but the sad fact is that to get any kind of recognition you can't just be a producer anymore, you have to turn your shop into a kind of 'food tourism Disneyland' for anyone to notice you lol.

nearlyrich

I treat food shopping as one of the most important jobs of the week, I don't mind spending a couple of hours going here and there to buy fresh meat, vegetables etc. I prefer to know that the meat I buy has been raised, killed and properly hung by the butcher who sells it to me.

Good food is a pleasure to eat, I would not eat overprocessed junk and supermarket meat is not worth buying in my opinion.

I am happy with my food sources but I agree that the persuit of the cheapest meat etc will lead to more and more crises.

moggins

I'd love to know when we became so squeamish about our food and where it comes from. There are so many people who buy ready meals and processed food because they are afraid of touching the original product. Offal is almost impossible to buy because people don't like the look or feel of it. There's such difficulty buying "real" meat because people only want stuff that doesn't bear any resemblence to the animal it came from.

Snow_Angel

I have to agree with all the posts on here about keeping small, local businesses in trade. I would be devestated if my local shops were not there anymore.
But hygiene standards are crazy. One of the huge turkey farms has managed to get infected with a potentially deadly virus, yet the old lady down the road can no longer sell jam from her house to passers-by? It's madness and I certainly know who I'd trust the most to keep me safe from harm.

Gingernutmeg

I think a good part of the problem is the fact that children aren't taught to cook in school anymore. I left school about ten years ago, but I can remember every single one of my practical Home Ec lessons because it was so unusual to actually be allowed to cook. We never made anything exciting though - flapjack, a swiss roll, apple crumble, a fruit flan and some jam. That was it, in five years of Home Ec lessons and a GCSE in Food Technology. There was no practical element to my GCSE - the exam involved designing packaging for a supermarket curry ...

If children are never taught to associate food with animals or farms, then how can we expect them (and their families) to be concerned about the welfare of the animals that become the food they eat, or the farms that grow it? It's a sad situation, and one that takes away so much from children. Cooking and eating good food is a great pleasure in life and we should celebrate it, not simply educate children about the 'dangers' of food.