Shop At Tescos...?

[andywg]

And finally, part four:

I don't want to have to choose between granny smith apples and more granny smith apples (when there are hundreds and hundreds of native apple varieties in this country alone), which are sour, watery and tastless,

Then shop at a large supermarket, we have at least 5 or 6 varieties of apple at any time (including at 3am) to choose from.

i don't want my apples covered in wax to make them look prettier to the consumer and i don't want strawberries that bounce when i drop them because they have all been bred to endure the long transportation and packaging process, with no emphasis on taste and quality.

I assume your conscience prevents you ever buying anything out of season then. Let's be honest, the English strawberry season is somewhat short and some people enjoy having fruits all year round.

I don't want my fruit and veg covered in pesticides

Supermarkets offer organic produce the last time I checked. If yours doesn't, perhaps you should petition for a larger supermarket with more choice

nor do i want my meat to raised in battery farms and slaughtered in less than humane manners in huge commercial slaughterhouses.

The supermarkets offer organic meat. As to less than humane slaughter, slaughterhouses are closely monitored and the checks and forms they have to complete are somewhat prodigal, to the point that many smaller abatoirs shut up shop. As a result the British abatoirs are commercial and as humane as possible. If you buy the British meats (from the many choices at the local supermarket) then you can't go too far wrong.

I want to preserve my countryside, my town, and help my community. I want OUR farmers to get a fair deal and not to be treated like crap by the supermarkets (with so many farmers committing suicide from the pressure they face now days in every direction), i want food that tastes good and is of good quality, and i want variety in food. I want to chat with my very qualified and nice butchers in my local butcher shop, and not to some spotty teenage guy in a supermarket who is miserable and doesn't have a clue what he is talking about. I want animals to get a good quality of life in this country and i want our environment and its amazing diversity of wildlife to be preserved and saved.

And you are very much in the minority. I want to be able to own a variety of frogfishes chosen from a large number in the lfs so I can choose the best one, but I am very much in the minority and as such do not have that luxury. Because so few people want your dream of Utopian shopping but rather cheap, quick and easy it is likely that the majority will, for the most part, prevail.

If all this means that i have to pay a little extra for much better food and products, and that i have to walk a little bit instead of sit in my car in traffic, getting stressed trying to find a damned packing space on a simmering saturday afternoon, then i am more than happy to do it.

We live in a very convienient age with low prices, which we are all becomming accustomed to, what at what price does this come? ... ... ...

Then you are truly lucky. There is no way I can walk to my nearest High street, as it is over 2 miles away. I have far more ease parking in the huge car park at the edge of town supermarket than I do in tiny town centre car parks. And it is great for you to have Saturday afternoons to do your shopping, I usually busy then playing rugby or seeing family or friends. As a result I often do my shopping late in the evenings in the weeks, and sometimes at night. There is no way I could do this with a local high street set of shops. I can't see them keeping their doors open 24 hours to accomodate modern lifestyles.

Society as a whole has changed, and supermarkets have adapted to that change. Were it not for the hugely outdated Sunday Trading Laws (I can't believe religious beliefs still prevent me from buying milk on a Sunday) then the large supermarkets would be permanently open so that people can buy what they want, when they want. this is the present of grocery shopping. you may like to live in the past, but many people either do not want to, or just simply cannot due to work and family requirements.

As to the price the cheaper food comes at, who can say? But until I am rich enough not to have to worry about paying all my bills and how to live day to day I shall leave that to others.

It is true, the large supermarkets will, and already have wiped out parts of local communitys. Take for example books. You may not think it but the books that tesco, sainsburys etc sell are all generic, low priced, popular books, and as they buy more and more, their prices increasingly drop leaving specialised book stores, which are privately owned and found (or used to be found) in many villages out-competed, and with them goes all the obscure books they sell too...

And as s result most people look for the rare titles on the internet. Again, this is the changing face of the world. I wouldn't be surprised to see many types of shop shut down as the internet and supermarkets move in. the simple reason is that most people want things cheaper and easier. Why would I want to pay full price for a book from a shop when I can get it cheaper elsewhere?

 

[AJGray]

i wonder if he still has chinese takeaways??

 

[Tokis-Phoenix]

Andy I will do a more indepth reply later on but i will raise a few points for now, but the only reasons you seem to give me for your love of supermarkets is that you cannot be bothered to walk to local shops, you seem to turn a blind eye to the suffering of small buisnesses because of this.

Oh yeah, and i will make a correction on my part- supermarkets like Tesco's do not buy chickens for 13p, its 3p per chicken.


Yeah, i can buy free range produce from my local supermarket, however, it is not as black and white as this- supermarkets own their own battery farms now days, whether i buy free range or battery range produce, some of the money will inevitably be spent by the supermarket on its battery farms.
I am strongly morally against battery farming, so why would i want money i spend on free range produce which is to be spent on the supermarkets own battery farms?


The higher prices in local shops is purely because they don't employ starving africans which can easily be abused by the system. You may say "well its bad they're being mistreated, but its better than some other jobs they could do"- but how in anyway is this a decent justification/excuse for what the supermarkets are doing? Are you saying africans living in poverty should be happy for anything they get, even if they still get abused at the end of the day at the expense of their health, dignity and well-being? How on earth is this adressing the problems that these people are facing?

The supermarkets are a part of the problem, and it is not acceptable to excuse their behavior just because there may be others that are worse than them. What would be even better would be the supermarkets treating their 3rd world workers better, and they could more than easily do this, but they won't because it would cost the supermarkets more money, because in the end the supermarkets don't give a cr*p about such workers, they are only viewed as cheap foriegn labour and the supermarkets will never treat them anything more than that. If you think the supermarkets are employing this cheap foriegn labor because they care about the workers they are employing and are trying to do something good for their countries, they you are thoroughly mistaken.


There is a another problem too- say you are a buisness, the more someone spends on your produce, the more you can charge for your food. Supermarkets will always pay more for the food a poverty stricken area in africa than the people living there will, because the supermarket can afford to and to be honest it has no competicion and so can easily get away with it.

The problem with this is that eventually, after the food prices have risen so much, the native africans will not be able to afford the food being produced in their own area's. Farms which would have supported the local communities with employment and affordable food, all of a sudden devote their energy to supplying foreign supermarkets.

I saw a program on tv a couple of months back, it showed a town where people were starving to death. In the town there was shop, filled with food, but no one could afford to buy it, so people continued to starve.

"I don't care if they make some profit, and I to be brutally honest I don't care if someone who worked in an outdated method has lost their job, that is progress"

What is this progress? Do you honestly believe it is progress, when a farmer who has dedicated his life to running his farm, is forced out of buisness because he refuses to reduce the welfare of his animals to keep up with the low price demands of the supermarket?

If you think this sort of thing is progress, then you might as well support something like battery farming as a whole. The farms which are surviving now days are the farms which are run on a colossal scale which do not dote the love and care on their animals that a smaller farm may spend on his animals.

Battery farms in essence, are the supermarkets of the farming world- there to produce cheap food for the consumer, whatever the environmental cost or cost of welfare to the animals may be.

 

[andywg]

Do supermarkets actually own the battery farms? I have never heard of supermarkets owning any of their suppliers, but rather they contract with suppliers for their products.

The supermarkets are a part of the problem, and it is not acceptable to excuse their behavior just because there may be others that are worse than them. What would be even better would be the supermarkets treating their 3rd world workers better, and they could more than easily do this, but they won't because it would cost the supermarkets more money, because in the end the supermarkets don't give a cr*p about such workers, they are only viewed as cheap foriegn labour and the supermarkets will never treat them anything more than that. If you think the supermarkets are employing this cheap foriegn labor because they care about the workers they are employing and are trying to do something good for their countries, they you are thoroughly mistaken.

Of course they don't care, but you would have these people given even less money and living in even more poverty, death and disease. It's not pretty but it is a staging post in the development of nations. Look at what our own people went through during the industrial revolution. It's just that we have gone through these stages and are looking back from a different vantage point.

There is a another problem too- say you are a buisness, the more someone spends on your produce, the more you can charge for your food. Supermarkets will always pay more for the food a poverty stricken area in africa than the people living there will, because the supermarket can afford to and to be honest it has no competicion and so can easily get away with it.

The problem with this is that eventually, after the food prices have risen so much, the native africans will not be able to afford the food being produced in their own area's. Farms which would have supported the local communities with employment and affordable food, all of a sudden devote their energy to supplying foreign supermarkets.

I saw a program on tv a couple of months back, it showed a town where people were starving to death. In the town there was shop, filled with food, but no one could afford to buy it, so people continued to starve.

Your example is not common. The farming subsidies given to farmers by the governments and the EU under the CAP mean we have huge mountains of subsidised food which we dump on the developing markets at prices they cannot produce the food for. These subsidies keep our uneconomical farmers in business (some of whom then moan when they start to get squeezed by market pressures) at the expense of developping farmers who can't sell their food at the low prices our food is sold at.

"I don't care if they make some profit, and I to be brutally honest I don't care if someone who worked in an outdated method has lost their job, that is progress"

What is this progress? Do you honestly believe it is progress, when a farmer who has dedicated his life to running his farm, is forced out of buisness because he refuses to reduce the welfare of his animals to keep up with the low price demands of the supermarket?

Yes I do. He has a business that is working on a 20th or 19th century principle in the 21st century. As the world changes the motto of life is 'adapt or die'. Some farms adapted and are doing well, others didn't and are struggling.

If you think this sort of thing is progress, then you might as well support something like battery farming as a whole. The farms which are surviving now days are the farms which are run on a colossal scale which do not dote the love and care on their animals that a smaller farm may spend on his animals.

Just because the farm is huge and they haven't given every single chicken a name doesn't mean they are keeping them locked up. It is far from impossible to run a very large farming outfit and still treat the animal humanely.

You seem somewhat narrow-minded in your opinions. The message coming across is that unless the food is bought from a food and locally produced you believe it is evil; destroying the environment and treating all the animals badly. Sure, some practices can, and should, be changed by supermarkets and their suppliers but the same can be said of almost all things we buy now. Look at clothes; cheap clothes come at the expense of sweat shops. What is the public's response? Huge crowds outside Primark in Oxford Street to get some cheap clothes.

The changes that supermarkets should change are pretty minor, relating to the way they source their products. the ethos of the supermarket is still a very sound and great one, though I feel you would be against supermarkets even if they stocked local food wherever possible (though demand would far outstrip supply) and had no battery farms.

 

[Gill]

Thank you Andy, Missed your way with language.
You Voice your opinions in a far better way than i do, as i tend to ramble.

I used spend my friday and saturday mornings tightly to a schedule as my health was better and we were a large family living at home. working full time.
Saturday morning was rushed between getting the shopping done, banking and then off to work for overtime.
Friday mornings would be the bulk of the English Shopping and Saturday was the Asain Shopping.

Now, None of that even come in to the Question.
I can shop anytime during the week and the food is good quality. I can still go the Asain Grocers if i want to, but thats only for products thay they sell in bulk prices, the the supermarkets don't. in terms of exotic fruits and herbs.
Before the 24 hour stores. Shopping was a chore that was dreaded after becoming ill. as i hated queing and getting jostled about by other people in rush. And would end up calling home saying someone come get me i can't lift the bags of shopping. And would sometimes have to ask the store if i could sit somewhere quiet while waiting for the rents'.

God this happened in B+Q once and Dad was so embarased.

No more rushing around, not more headaches trying to find everything by going round 3-4 shops for everyones particular likes/dislikes.
If i am feeling under the weather, I can go shopping late in the evening/early morning and wander around in peace and take as much time as it takes to get the shopping done.
Out of town centres are a godsend. Where as a saturday morning spent trying to get to town to get a good parking space in the cheaper car park.
Now all the shops are nearer and within walking distance.

I can do most of my banking On-line. Do most of the shopping online and get the same quality without having to use the car and waste petrol driving around shops.

the Consumer age is changing and people change with it. sticking to old and oudated views on consumerism and the good old days is a waste. that day and age is gone and is not coming back.

I can share some of TK views on what happens when conglomerates buy the vast majority of what a community,town, country makes. Like with the Tonganese - who now can only afford to buy the processed canned food from supermarkets and can't buy what they make and grow as it goes to large overseas companies.
but simply this is the world we are in and it ain't gonna change. Not yet and not for a long time.

 

[Underwurlde]

Gotta say it, the larger supermarkets to me are greed mongers. They just can't get enough, can they?

Sod 'em. My business goes to the little guy. Power to the people, brothers & sisters unite against the multinational conglomerates!

 

[OohFeeshy]

It's all very well telling people not to shop at supermarkets, but the fact is there's no way you could practically not do it. It's all very nice to go and buy fruit and veg from a greengrocers and meat from a butchers and break from a bakers, but where do you get the other essentials from? Bin liners? Washing up liquid? Clothes? Electronics? The list goes on. And you can't say that's different to buying everything there- the profits from your other items will still go to various practices that have been disapproved of.

 

[madgap]

Lol, it sounds just like Wal-mart.

I agree with CFC though, i think animal rights are obviously important, but don't let yourself get too dragged into that whole animal rights movement thing, as there are a great deal of extremists who really have no real sense of reality, they seem to get their kicks out of exagerating many cases of animal cruelty, vandilising people's property and terrorising anyone who doesn't agree with everything they say etc.


I don't shop at Tesco's anyway, i do occasionally shop at supermarkets, but i try to avoid them in general and rather spend my money on the local shops in my town. Supermarkets are wiping out the diversity in towns (they are also bad for local eccomnomies) and in the countryside too as they wipe out farm after farm when the farmers don't want to support and supply the supermarkets, and supermarkets are not exactly places run with a great sense of morality in mind either way.

A great sense of moral from you, here.
Not that I have seen you talk rubbish as yet.
It puts me to shame that I do go to Tesco. But this won't stop me. Small shops are all crap in my local area. I'd use them if I could

 

[Underwurlde]

but where do you get the other essentials from? Bin liners? Washing up liquid? Clothes? Electronics?

You are kidding, aren't you??

 

[CFC]

We went through a phase of buying our food from local shops as we had been sucked into the "local produce is better quality" propaganda, we went to the butchers for meat, the bakers for bread, the farm shop for vegetables and dairy products and the off license for wine and beer, the result was we ended up spending at least double what our weekly supermarket shop normally costs us for less food, much of which went off faster as the smaller shops had a lower turn over of stock so the vegetables weren't as fresh and by the end of the week we had to throw a lot of food away. On top of that we had increased fuel costs for actually getting to the shops, parking charges for using the public car parks and less time to do all the other chores that we have to fit into the two days off a week that we get, and we still had to go the supermarket for all those little bits and pieces that the small shops didnt have like cereal bars for lunch boxes and frozen pizza (example) for the nights when there is no time to cook a proper meal.

If you have the time and finances to spend your weekend wandering around the shops then you are a lucky person, for us as a working family it is not a luxury we can afford in time or money. The supermarket gives us more time and money to spend our small ammount of free time at the weekends doing the things we enjoy.

 

[alessasavoca]

I for one agree that chain stores are killing smaller businesses. It's just a basic rule of economics. Take the town where I live. We have a very small Somerfields, which is generally terrible. Waitrose keep applying to build a store on the cricket pitch, and keep being turned down. I will agree that a Waitrose may be what the town needs, as it would most likely be the thing that we need to give Somerfield a kick up the backside!

However, when more and more chain stores come into towns they tend to push out local businesses. For example, take Waterstones. If a Waterstones came to the town where I live, people would get their books from there. It isn't always about prices either, books are usually around the same prices wherever you go but people would see a Waterstones (who would be able to afford a bigger shop frontage-making themselves more visible to the public) and go there to buy their books, completely missing the local bookstore because they either completely missed it (being a smaller frontage) or they are more inclined to shop at a branded store.

Unfortunately it happens, in all industries, clothes, groceries, books, and restaurants. When it comes to restaurants I think a lot of people forget that the reason their meal is so cheap is that it's usually come off the back of a lorry, out of a packet and been microwaved or fried-that's why every Brewer's Fayre and TGI Fridays smells the same. I'm not saying all small businesses have home-made food (mine does) but it's more likely that they have.

At the end of the day the chains are killing the smaller businesses. It has nothing to do with them keeping up with 'modern times' or being stubborn, it's just a case of not having the same amount of money behind themselves as a chain. People could do something about it but it's a combination of either not having enough time, or money to do it.

 

[CAC]

It is true, the large supermarkets will, and already have wiped out parts of local communitys. Take for example books. You may not think it but the books that tesco, sainsburys etc sell are all generic, low priced, popular books, and as they buy more and more, their prices increasingly drop leaving specialised book stores, which are privately owned and found (or used to be found) in many villages out-competed, and with them goes all the obscure books they sell too...

And as s result most people look for the rare titles on the internet. Again, this is the changing face of the world. I wouldn't be surprised to see many types of shop shut down as the internet and supermarkets move in. the simple reason is that most people want things cheaper and easier. Why would I want to pay full price for a book from a shop when I can get it cheaper elsewhere?

I aggree that the internet has played a part in this, and that why buy a book from a local shop than a supermarket (the local shop cant buy in bulk so cant give the consumer the best price) but what Im trying to say is with less book stores, which are driven out because they cannot compete on the major titles, then where will the small book publishers sell their books? (in a resonable mass I mean, but not astronomical like harry potter for example). The internet has no such place as of yet that a person can go and buy, or specifically get-in a book. eBay can be used in part, however I dont think it can provide all the answers.

[quote post='1783722' date='Oct 1 2007, 11:46 AM']However, when more and more chain stores come into towns they tend to push out local businesses. For example, take Waterstones. If a Waterstones came to the town where I live, people would get their books from there. It isn't always about prices either, books are usually around the same prices wherever you go but people would see a Waterstones (who would be able to afford a bigger shop frontage-making themselves more visible to the public) and go there to buy their books, completely missing the local bookstore because they either completely missed it (being a smaller frontage) or they are more inclined to shop at a branded store.[/quote]
I think thats a great point, I have to say that if I wanted an Xbox game (for example) then I would likely go to a branded, commonly known and popular shop over a small, one-off shop simply because I wouldnt think their prices would be cheaper (and I think as individuals we may need to get the idea of bigger, branded companys being cheaper for certain things.)


As for quality, I know from experiance that if you went into a Tescos and asked someone for a piece of English Free Range Beef and did the same in a butcher that the price would be differant (butchers would be more, I would have thought) but more importantly (to me atleast) the taste and texture, aswell as the way it cooks etc would be much better from a butchers. The same can be said for Bakers IME, with Bakers making much better tasting bread than what a supermarket can supply for the same price (even if you do have to cut it yourself).

 

[andywg]

I aggree that the internet has played a part in this, and that why buy a book from a local shop than a supermarket (the local shop cant buy in bulk so cant give the consumer the best price) but what Im trying to say is with less book stores, which are driven out because they cannot compete on the major titles, then where will the small book publishers sell their books? (in a resonable mass I mean, but not astronomical like harry potter for example). The internet has no such place as of yet that a person can go and buy, or specifically get-in a book. eBay can be used in part, however I dont think it can provide all the answers.

You are kidding? The internet is a god-send for small businesses. You can reach a market of literally millions without the need for an expensive storefront. I am willing to bet that with Ebay and Amazon you can buy most, if not all, the books you would find in a local book store.

As for quality, I know from experiance that if you went into a Tescos and asked someone for a piece of English Free Range Beef and did the same in a butcher that the price would be differant (butchers would be more, I would have thought) but more importantly (to me atleast) the taste and texture, aswell as the way it cooks etc would be much better from a butchers. The same can be said for Bakers IME, with Bakers making much better tasting bread than what a supermarket can supply for the same price (even if you do have to cut it yourself).

I am willing to bet that a double blind taste test would show that most people couldn't tell the difference. I would not be surprised if many local butchers get their meat from the same abatoir as the supermarkets (being as there are so few) so the difference is not likely to be too great.

The best answer to all of it is in CFC's post

If you have the time and finances to spend your weekend wandering around the shops then you are a lucky person, for us as a working family it is not a luxury we can afford in time or money. The supermarket gives us more time and money to spend our small ammount of free time at the weekends doing the things we enjoy.

 

[CAC]

Yes some small businesses do very well from the internet (and some have started because of it) however long term running local book stores who have local support may not use the internet.
Andy, have you ever watched any of the Rick Stein programmes? If you havent I will try and get a link to a site which you can watch them off, and he did alot of tests (I think once per programme, in the series when he went arround the various buisnesses in Britain) where he did a roast organic, a roast supermarket bought, and a free range but non-organic chicken from a butchers (as an example, he also did beef and I think lamb aswell as varous other things) and let a large group of people, I cant remeber who they were, but I think they MIGHT have been food societys or just general clubs that werent food associated and had them eat some of each which had been cooked in the same way for the same time, and were described as the same thing (i.e British produced etc) and I think everytime (or atleast the vast majority) the organic or free range butchers chicken, beef etc would come out as the best in a vote.

Butchers may well use the same abatoirs as supermarkets, but the way that its butchered can make alot of differance, aswell as the animals that actually get sent to the abatoir and the time its matured for (my dad has a special out house that he hangs all the meats he has butchered after killing) and the process of hanging meats takes a long time which is why I think most of the meat that comes from a supermarket is tougher than meat that been hung for a longer, more appropriate time. I think the fact that supermarkets seem to be in a rush to get foods out there ASAP to make their money is a mojour factor in this. Take for example the thing where they pick them when theyre not ripe and let them ripen whilst in transit (allthough we buy tomatoes and other friut/veg which may have had this method used on it, from the supermarket).

 

[andywg]

Yes some small businesses do very well from the internet (and some have started because of it) however long term running local book stores who have local support may not use the internet.

And so those that cannot operate well in the modern marketplace lose out, that is the way of the market.

Andy, have you ever watched any of the Rick Stein programmes?

No. Cookery programs bore me to tears.

If you havent I will try and get a link to a site which you can watch them off, and he did alot of tests (I think once per programme, in the series when he went arround the various buisnesses in Britain) where he did a roast organic, a roast supermarket bought, and a free range but non-organic chicken from a butchers (as an example, he also did beef and I think lamb aswell as varous other things) and let a large group of people, I cant remeber who they were, but I think they MIGHT have been food societys or just general clubs that werent food associated and had them eat some of each which had been cooked in the same way for the same time, and were described as the same thing (i.e British produced etc) and I think everytime (or atleast the vast majority) the organic or free range butchers chicken, beef etc would come out as the best in a vote.

Not double blind though. He knew what each one was when cooking it. I said a double blind where no one taking part in the test (either preparing it and recording the results, or actually experiencing it) knows what they are testing.

Butchers may well use the same abatoirs as supermarkets, but the way that its butchered can make alot of differance, aswell as the animals that actually get sent to the abatoir and the time its matured for (my dad has a special out house that he hangs all the meats he has butchered after killing) and the process of hanging meats takes a long time which is why I think most of the meat that comes from a supermarket is tougher than meat that been hung for a longer, more appropriate time. I think the fact that supermarkets seem to be in a rush to get foods out there ASAP to make their money is a mojour factor in this. Take for example the thing where they pick them when theyre not ripe and let them ripen whilst in transit (allthough we buy tomatoes and other friut/veg which may have had this method used on it, from the supermarket).

And most people obviosult don't care too much about these things or else they woudl all be clamouring to pay more for their food at small shops that offer high quality foods. As to "more appropriate" hanging times, that is only to someone who values that taste and texture in their foods. I have worked in a restaurant kitchen cooking steakd and know just how many people in the UK order their steak either well done or burnt. At that point it doesn't matter if you have the best fillet steak hung for 17 days, or my old leather jacket thrown on the grill: it all ends up the same.

It's a simple rule at work here: people pay for what they want to pay for. The cheap food sells better because most people aren't that worried about having gourmet tasting foods in small portions each night, but prefer to have a hearty dinner at a low price.

It seems to me that some people value having the perfect ripeness and tenderness in their foods and can't understand why the mass population would rather have some more change in their pocket and some extra time at the weekend.