a month without supermarket - new challenge for 2011 starts at post 1013

competitionscafe

trubster wrote:

havent you thought of a tesco.com online order... lol, not visiting the supermarket are you...

err.....I think that's cheating!

Interesting thread - I did this challenge a while back when it was on pledgebank and it was much easier than I though - did cheat a wee bit by stocking up on bog roll beforehand but apart from that everything else was easy + I discovered lots of good local shops.

Some interesting comments and links on there, including this one
"I have been avoiding supermarkets for nearly a year now and Like all of your correspondents, I feel completely liberated. I enjoy shopping locally and have found some gems of local suppliers alll of which are cheaper and better than anything supermarkets can offer without comparison. Why should I be surprised? We have been moved to a place so removed from local suppliers that we have forgotten what the food chain should be and we should be shouting this fromthe rooftops at every opportunity!"
http://www.pledgebank.com/ShopLocally

Real Food was a lifesaver for washing up liquid, laundry & dishwasher liquid etc and now I don't go to Supermarkets much - especially Tesco, I can often avoid that place for months, except when I forget to buy something and only realise after 6 or 7pm when all the local shops are shut We also have a Waitrose now which is quite good, but bit pricey for fruit and veg - get a weekly organic box from eastcoastorganics though so only need top-ups occassionally.

By the way, Dispatches prog next Monday might be of interest?

MONDAY 19 FEBRUARY
Documentary
Dispatches: The Supermarket That's Eating Britain
8:00pm - 9:00pm
Channel 4
VIDEO Plus+: 6432
Subtitles

The current affairs series looks at the aggressive expansion plans of Tesco, Britain's favourite supermarket. With 2000 stores and 15 million customers a week, it's almost twice as big as its nearest rival. This film examines the ways in which Tesco avoids paying tens of millions of pounds in tax by exploiting legal loopholes, as well as chronicling the links Tesco has forged with New Labour.

competitionscafe

Also, interesting article at: http://www.jeanettewinterson.com/pages/content/index.asp?PageID=310

<"This autumn I checked how many English apples were on sale in my local Waitrose and Tesco - the answer was one variety, in one of those stores. At the height of our own apple season, we were importing our apples from New Zealand and the USA.

The label on the lone UK apples said 'ripened on the tree.' Are we going mad, or is it just me?

I went to my local organic shop, and there were eight English eating apples on sale, and two cookers. All were sourced from nearby Worcestershire farms, and all had the delicious taste of a true apple.

Sadly, only 4% of the fruit we eat in the UK, is produced here; the supermarkets say it can't be done cheaply enough.

Meanwhile, Tesco who has a staggering 25% market share of all food sold in the UK, has just announced profits of two billion. For my money, this just doesn't add up.

I don't shop at supermarkets - not least because I hate the sensory deprivation. Supermarkets have lost us the tastes, textures, scents and excitements of real food. The bright lights and packaging are there to hide the fact that there are no wonderful smells, no chances to pick up lovely earthy potatoes, or find mushrooms that hit the nostrils with the whiff of warm straw, The wet fish counters in supermarkets are dismal affairs of farmed and previously frozen products, with dull sunken eyes and flabby flesh... " >

COOLTRIKERCHICK

comitionscafe.... you beat me to it....

about the programme on channel 4 on monday..... we all know who tescos are so big that local councils etc are afraid of saying no to them etc....

so it will be interesting viewing.......

also thanks for that other link ..i will have a read of it with my cuppa......

i hope that these programmes that are on.... will drive home the message to more peeps.....

the fruit and veg that i bought on friday. is still lasting... normally by now the veg i would have bought in tescos.... would be looking rather limp by now.....

on my last 1/2 bag of sugar.... so will have to go to mackro this time and buy a large outter i think....

the nearest local shop for groceries.......i wouldnt even get my pet food from there... as it is very...... very.....dodgy....

they too have been known to remove the sell by dates...and also prepacked pasties etc... after their sell by is up.... open them and put them as fresh....

loumac

I'm sure it's been mentiond a million times before but did you know that for every £10 spent in the UK £1 is spent in Tesco's?!?!?! :eek:

I really think that's shocking. Sorry if I'm repepating a boring fact. Ha!

COOLTRIKERCHICK

loumac wrote:

I'm sure it's been mentiond a million times before but did you know that for every £10 spent in the UK £1 is spent in Tesco's?!?!?! :eek:

I really think that's shocking. Sorry if I'm repepating a boring fact. Ha!

i thinks its more like £1 in every £3 spend on groceries...

show how much of a hold they got...... beofre we know it ...the only shop around will be tescos......and for a lot of other things... car insurance telephone etc...

COOLTRIKERCHICK

i noticed with the pledgebank.... that keeping away from the big guns.. like tescos....etc..

and that they could use the co-op.........

i think if all else fails its the co-op.. as i have had to use them for milk and high juice for the kids....

loumac

Having just watched shopping the supermarkets I'm even more put off by Tescos. I know we're all pretty savvy shoppers on here but it's quite scary to think about all the little tricks they use to encourage you to spend more.

mo1_2

this is probably an old fashioned idea,but the best way to save on food is to cook all your own meals,take rice pudding 28p for a box of pudding rice will make about 20,and it taste like the best thing in the world lol

newlywed

loumac wrote:

Having just watched shopping the supermarkets I'm even more put off by Tescos. I know we're all pretty savvy shoppers on here but it's quite scary to think about all the little tricks they use to encourage you to spend more.

I didn't see the program. What are their tricks???

kscour

I'd use the co-op is we had one!
This weekend I'll be able to visit the town where I used to work which has lots of real shops (not just one or two) so hopefully I'll be able to find good sources of things like tissues and toilet rolls and edam or gouda cheese (DD1's staple sandwhich filling) Meanwhile after a very quick and cheap visit to lidls I've managed fine so far. greengrocers I was in yesterday stocks flour at a reasonable price but not much choice and their soy sauce was nearly twice as much as lidls but I didn't mind because what I spent over on that I gained on the fruit and veg.
Compared the shop at greengrocers to equivilant in tescos except that the eggs in greengrocers although they are not free range knowing where they come from they are the next best thing and certainly above the barn eggs I used as a comparision in tescos. I spent £1.25 on a locally produced 250g pack of butter in greengrocers and priced up for normal country life spreadable in tescos 88p (cos that's what I would have bought if I had been there) The rest was as like for like as possible except that quality would be much better in greengrocers.
And how much more did this cost me (big drum roll please..........):D

I actually spent 11p less in greengrocers! :T even after buying yummy local butter and cheese. And I was in greengrocers max of 10 mins and we all know how long it takes to shop even quickly in tescos.

So it's quicker, it's friendler, its betty quality, its bordering on indulgent with the butter and cheese and it's cheaper
Why go to Mr T's?