beating the supermarket

Nikiya

Cathy, they are always saying they have to bring food from all over the world because of us, customers, who are spoilt and want out-of-season products.
I do not believe that to be true. The few times I have seen products that come from England (strawberries, apples) they cost way more than any similar product brought from elsewhere. What I believe is supermarkets are only bent on lining their pockets and will buy from the cheapest bidder (Israel, not abiding by European labour laws, is a big provider of cheaper goods. Look at the labels on the boxes showing the origin). Despite that, food is still expensive to buy because of their margins.
Many French products we like cost here at least 50% more than there... however, the distance to London can be as big as to some French destinations, and the manufacturer probably sells them at the same price. Does not the UK have trade agreements with EURope? Then the difference is that supermarkets in this country are greedy. I strongly believe consumers should unite and demand a better deal.
Going back to food from other parts of the world: I also find air freighted fish is fresher than UK fish -how come? Maybe is is another margin enhancing gimmick?
And how come that being fruit and veg as expensive as they are here I saw on TV that some UK farmers were cutting down their orchards because their subsidies had been reduced for that product?

cathy_3

the supermarkets  export fruit and veg to other countries like kenya to be packed  by slave labour  and then ship it back

the growers here cant compete with the foreign growers who pick up any old labour along the road side and exploit them    they have to  as the supermarkets make the growers pay for  bogofs and also reject almost 70% of their product as its not the right size shape  blush  etc

the growers cant do it,  they get paid every 90 days if theyre good  and if they complain that the supermarkets are paying them too little they get kicked off the list  and theyve paid a fortune for the packaging

they pay 2 1/2 pence for a bogof label for instance

the supermarkets even charge the growers money for advertising the product

dudley more  for instance did a succesful ad campaign for british lamb

so the supermarkt charged each farmer £2000 for the priveledge of the advert

they are bad bad bad


I suggest you get the book  "not on the label" by felicity lawrence

a real eye opener


your right THE CUSTOMER doesnt demand all apples have to be so many cms by so many cms and a uniform colour

the supermarket tells us thats what were getting

we have no option

taste doesnt come into it now and the fruit and veg is so old by the time we get it its useless anyway

if the 4 crops a season and 16 doses of pesticide and calcium to make them grow fast doesnt kill off the goodness theres none in the soil anyway

Crana

I was driving along yesterday and decided to count the food delivery lorrys along the route.

the first 9 were food    the next one was nitrogen!

then the rest were food and packaging for food

lol cathy that's a strange "food delivery lorry" taking nitrogen

just kidding

rosie

cathy_3

it was probably being used to clean the chickens and salad ;D

Nikiya

I had lost this thread!!
Cathy, if things are as you say. Why is it so difficult and expensive buying directly from farmers? I have tried the only two farmers' markets around here and found them poor and expensive. One of the things I last bought was a "pure apple juice" that was more pure water, not much cheaper that the supermarket's, and only because I bought three bottles!!
I am not the only one that finds them a rip off...
Also, I used to go to a pick your own (Priory Farm) It was not particularly cheap or good, but at least you were guaranteed freshness. It does not do PYO any more. I tried another one, quite far, and it was a fully blown enterprise selling everything (gifts, cards, etc)...
Again, we were not impressed by price-quality and never went back. I have been recommended another one and so far, the recorded message on the tel. tells you "the crops are not ready"... I grow what I can in the garden which is not much, since I have not got the time.
What can the consumer do?
What makes me angry is that the food writers and TV cooks that enjoy the limelight never denounce the situation we've been discussing. They probably have access to proper crops we can only see in their pretty books.

Now, for instance, all potatoes are "all rounders"; meaning, despite being called "Kind Edward" or "Cara", or whatever, they are all flabby, neither waxy nor floury, sprout the next day and come apart before they are completely cooked. "Fresh fish" is old and some "fresh fruit" -like pineapple-- is always mouldy... no wonder so many people only eat out of packages which, besides, is a lot cheaper.

student100

It's probably to do with where you live how good farm shops and the like are. At home, in a small Cheshire village, there is a farm shop which is fantastic - sells lots of veg and other stuff quite cheap - you can buy 25kg sacks of potatoes in the winter for about £4 (they're grown on the farm, unwashed and unsized though so I reckon about half a kilo of what you buy is mud!). Anyhow it is a fantastic shop, in a converted shed in the farm's yard (although some of the veg does come from other farms it's all reasonably local).

Down here in Bristol, I would have no idea where to get veg if not from a supermarket or the odd greengrocer which are few and far between.

So if you're lucky enough to live somewhere rural then great, but lots of city types will be stuck with the supermarket!

cathy_3

farmers markets here are rubbish as well,  they seem expensive because were used to the supermarket prices, they can do this as the growers they use grow 4 crops a year on very depleted soil and use slave labour to harvest it  

take coffee for instance  

10 years ago  the coffee farmers were getting 70p a kilo for their beans  now they get 9pence   but the coffee is expensive because nestle  say   "heres 9p  take it or leave it"   since vietnam got in on the picture

our farmers get one crop a year   the stuffs better  they dont employ gangmasters paying £1 an hour

prince charles employes a gangmaster at highgrove but hes the only decent one in britain   he pays the minimum wage  vets every one carefuly  pays tax and insurance for them and helps them all he can

but I have to agree     the farmers markets are rubbish up here   mainly cakes and jams and a few plants
no meat or veggies which is what I went for

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,8126-1113490,00.html

Nikiya

Cathy you must live nearby !! I have the same complaint... all "home made" things, when what I want is the raw material...
When I lived in Rome I had a market --open every day, not once a month-- nearby. Most of the greengrocers were growers, meaning they only had a small variety each. Took their crops every day to the market.
I have never seen this here, and in France, only in a few places.
I buy chicken from a farm coop (don't know if I can publish the name). Better quality than the supermarket, but more expensive, and you have to order around a month in advance --and freeze, which is a pain. The delivery (another company) is rubbish --some orders never arrive. Sometimes it seems they are doing you a favour by selling. I really do not understand. So many things do not work, or are not found and I am getting 10 phone calls a day from India trying to sell me "Talk talk", financial planning and God knows what...
We'll probably end up eating cardboard and hype... a lot of people are on that diet already!!

student100

I'm sorry to say that half of me has little sympathy for the farmers, whether growing spuds in Britain or coffee in Kenya. The economist in me knows that this is simply a matter of supply and demand. If the price is too low to make a normal profit by producing good X, then of course you stop making it and go and produce good Y which is more profitable. You don't produce more and more of it just so you can make a little bit of money, because this will only make the price situation worse.

If there wasn't an oversupply of coffee in the world, the price wouldn't be so low. The problem is not with the supermarkets who naturally try to get the lowest price possible, but with the suppliers who don't move into more profitable markets. It's a case of survival of the fittest - the best farmers win! The ones who can see that they're not making much money from growing wheat and potatoes will branch out into other more profitable businesses - oilseed rape for biodiesel or holiday cottages or something - and eventually the supply will reduce to a reasonable level and the price will increase to what it should be. This is the natural way for food production to be governed, by the market, not by subsidies which pay farmers to overproduce and grow tonnes of poor quality crops just to get their EU funding.


Incidentally, did you know that EU subsidies on British farmers actually makes overseas farmers even poorer? For example, the EU pays British farmers to grow sugar beet, and this means that sugar beet is underpriced in Britain. So poor sugar cane farmers in Africa can't compete with the artificially priced EU sugar, and they are unable to earn a living. But whereas a British farmer who has to stop farming will probably be able to find a job doing something else - or at the very least will get reasonable unemployment benefit payments - the farmer in Africa will have nothing to fall back on and will be unable to afford to feed his family.

The problem is not with the supermarket, it's with the market, and with the government. British farms are oversubsidised and overproduce anyway, which makes the price low. No-one is forcing farmers to sell their goods to supermarkets for a pittance, they chose to do it. They could leave farming altogether or chose to grow something more profitable (like good, healthy, organic, tasty vegetables that have lumps and bumps and are all misshapen, and are only available when they are in season.) If consumers demanded food like this of the supermarkets, they would provide. If we started shopping elsewhere, supermarkets' profits would be affected and they would alter their product ranges accordingly. So no-one blame the supermarkets: the farmers can blame themselves for not adapting to the market and we consumers can blame ourselves for buying the rubbish they sell.

DiggingOut

Student100, you say this in public and not anonymously and you are likely to be lynched.

But you are 100% correct.