Question For Uk Shoppers (in General)

[PrairieSunflower]

I find in places like Sainsbury's its clearly labelled if meat is British.

 

[Shelster]

MBOU you have just said what I was going to mention re buying British meat, and welfare of pigs as a prime example.

We are dairy farmers, we buy what food we can from local businesses, but the rest we get from sainsburys as my husband says they are the kindest retailer to the general farmer.

If we have to buy meat from a superstore, it is always British.

We have our own chickens, so have free range eggs anyway.

Farmers do have a tough life, meeting demands from defra for welfare of animals, and therefore costs of British meat is put up as so much more freedom is given to animals during their life and making it a comfortable existence that ultimately superstore prices go on the increase, resulting in people buying the bulk of their meat from imported countries.
These meats are imported and still cheaper because they live in appaling conditions abroad, don't get cared for as much as UK animals, and the farmers get the best price for the meat.

It is unfair, farmers are doing right by their animals and still getting penalised but al least the animals have a comfortable living.
Everyone's livestock rules should be the same if meat is being exported from Belgium or wherever and consumed in this country, at least our farmers will then be given a chance.
It's not just about money, it's about giving animals a decent life whilst they have it, until these rules change, these awful conditions will continue as its a cost worthy way of making a living abroad, and why change for the better of the animals If they can get away doing it like they are now??

Err lots of waffle, hope you see my point!

 

[Flute]

I'm a wee bit late on this, having only just seen it, but thought I would share my thoughts:

Personally I would rather buy from local and independent shops, but having had to move back with my parents I don't really get a chance to do that any more. They use 3 of the giants often, one of which I wouldn't ever shop at if I had a choice purely because of ethical reasons.

Having lost my job early this year because our small Deli was out competed by Tescos, Lidl and Aldie all in the same small countryside town, I would always tend to want to support small businesses now. When I lived in Northwich, we had a fantastic butcher who stocked completely local, free range meats, and you know what? They were actually cheaper than Sainsbury's up the road, and the quality was 10 x better.

The odd thing about living in North Wales, which as you can imagine is a very farming orientated area, is that it is ridiculously difficult to find any locally source meat anywhere! What is the sense in that? I think a lot of it comes down to the absurd amount of giant supermarkets we have despite being a very rural area, where the nearest city is well over an hour away. People just aren't interested in buying local stuff because they think they can get it cheaper in the bigger shops.

Obviously there are good points to supermarkets, the jobs being the most important one I can think of right now.

All in all, the main cons that make me want to avoid them are a.) out competing small businesses, and b.) I hate how unethical a lot of the meat is. Aside from how manufactured a lot of it is, I wouldn't want to touch certain things with a barge pole (battery farmed chickens, pork from the EU, veal, etc). And I often find that supermarket meat is tasteless, oily and shrinks when cooked (yay for pumping water into meat!)

Saying that, there are some that I do like, mainly because their ethical policies are better. Sainsbury's, Morrisons, Waitrose, etc. If I had any of those locally then I would be more willing to shop at a supermarket.

Hope any of that made sense or helped in anyway :3

 

[CezzaXV]

My mum runs a small fruit and veg shop and stocks a small amount of groceries also. She gets a lot of people coming in moaning that her prices are more expensive than the local Tesco. Not by a lot, but a small amount.

However, my mum is not charging more by choice. Tesco are actually selling their goods to the general public for cheaper than she can get them even from the cash and carry, let alone what she can afford to sell them to her customers. I guess Tesco are able to buy in such ridiculous levels of bulk that they can buy and sell it so cheaply.

Her shop gets by (barely) by selling some speciality goods that you can't get elsewhere, but we're really just keeping our heads above water and that's it. We do get a lot of customers saying how lovely our produce is, how much nicer the local milk, eggs etc are than the stuff from Tesco that comes from God knows where, and our customers are happy to pay more for that quality, but there are other people who just want cheap.

As for the jobs aspect, I don't believe that such places really create jobs. Sure, jobs will be created when these supermarkets first open, but an equal amount of small businesses (and their suppliers) will shut down as a result in many cases.

 

[MBOU]

Very good point about the job aspect Cezza!

I vaguely remember you saying your mum ran a fruit n veg shop before... or at least... getting real deja vu about it lol. I wish her all the best with the business, people determined to run shops in competition with supermarkets deserve an award for bravery!!

I would rather pay more for ethical, better quality and local produce... I'm sure most people would! Many say they cant afford it which is really just down to convienience and a lack of knowledge on how to work with food. On the face of it, produce can seem more expensive... but thats just because supermarkets constantly direct you towards deals and cheap poor quality food.

If you buy the slightly more expensive food, it is better quality and you need less of it. Learn to cook outside your comfort zones and use cheaper cuts of meat that a lot of people avoid through lack of experience. Saw good program about Mutton recently, much cheaper than buying lamb and actually tastes great

One thing that gets me is the cheap sausages tehy sell in supermarkets... or worse still.. i cant believe people buy them!! Urgh dear god! I dread to think what is in those things!! *shudder*

 

[CezzaXV]

We're lucky here in that we don't have a major supermarket in our town. We have a small Tesco Express which sells a very limited range of goods, but no big supermarket.

There was talk of Sainsbury's wanting to build a large supermarket here back along and I sat in on a meeting of interested parties. There was one woman there who was adamant that she did not believe that such a shop would take away from local businesses and people would still go to the local shops for their day to day stuff. If stuff is cheaper in the supermarkets, then it's down to the local businesses to be competitive, but as I said before, many of the supermarkets are selling goods cheaper than my mum can buy them at wholesale price, let alone be charging for retail. Rubbish I say. I've been guilty of it myself. I like to support local businesses myself, but when you can park right outside and get everything you need in one place, the temptation to go to the supermarkets is so great. My mum's very lucky in that she has private parking for her shop right outside the door and is the only place which sells certain items in our town.

A story my mum heard from someone who used to run a pet shop in town:
There was a lady who used to come in every week to buy food for her dogs. Eventually it became necessary for the owner to increase the price of the cans by 5p. It's a ridiculously small amount, but it now meant that it was cheaper in Asda, which is a good 7 miles away. The lady stopped buying it in the pet shop and started buying in Asda, a good 14 mile round trip! The price of petrol must have been far more than what she thought she was saving! Just goes to show the lengths people will go to for cheapness and convenience.

On the other hand though, in my boyfriend's home town there is a single petrol station owned by Tesco. However, next week a new out of town Morrisons is opening with its own fuel station, which my boyfriend hopes is going to cause lower fuel prices in the town due to the competitiveness.

So in some ways these places can be good if they encourage competitiveness between big companies, but sadly there are many small businesses who have no means whatsoever of competing and will simply die off as a result.