Supermarkets

Posted on 2003/12/31 24:17:19 (December 2003) by john.

A community service, or soulless corporations trying to bleed us dry?

Recently I am finding myself increasingly annoyed by supermarkets, to the extent that on my last few trips I've been in a thoroughly bad mood throughout.

I think my main gripe is down to money. It won't be a great revelation to any of you, but supermarkets are just downright devious in the little tricks they use to try and get you to spend more money. To be honest, I find this plain insulting. When I go into any kind of shop I want to feel I'm being treated like a valued and respected customer, not just a wallet on legs. It's a two way thing, I need shops and shops need customers like me, so there ought to be respect in both directions. So for my part I don't insult the staff or piss in the frozen peas, and on the shop's part I expect them not to try and con me as soon as I walk through the door.

Let me illustrate a little. Consider first the humble trolley. Typically these are kept outside, and so the con begins before you've even set foot in the supermarket itself. In the days before Chie got her car I always used to use baskets, knowing that whatever I bought I would ultimately have to carry by hand, so, naturally, if it was too heavy to carry around the supermarket, it would be too heavy to carry back home. This is a system which suited me well, and in those good old days I would typically spend somewhere around the twenty pounds mark - I was naturally limited by the amount of things I could fit in a basket. This I was happy with.

Now, given that we typically drive to the supermarket now, it seems to make sense to get a trolley. However, given that I don't have a family to buy for, and I would rather shop little and often rather than doing a huge shop less frequently, I consider myself the sort of person that ought to go for the smaller trolley rather than the larger one. So for a while there was a period where I'd typically spend somewhere around the thirty pounds mark. This seemed sort of reasonable.

Then I noticed one day the "small" trolleys had been replaced and suddenly got larger and deeper. Not just at one supermarket, but within the space of just a few months both Sainsbury's and Tesco did the same thing. To add insult, to, err, insult, last time I went to Tesco, the smaller trolleys had also apparently run out. But, lo and behold there were still plenty of great big huge trolleys. I noticed lots of people go over to the place where the small trolleys should have been, scratch their heads a bit, then wander over and settle for a larger one instead. It must be quite easy for a supermarket to work out which kinds of trolleys people tend to go for, and yet they choose to deliberately supply too few of the small ones. On this occasion I downright refused to get a larger trolley, and searched the lengths and breadths of the car park to find an abandoned smaller one. On the way I noticed a man collecting, guess what, all the larger trolleys, which there were no shortage of by the entrance, and leaving the smaller trolleys scattered to the four winds.

...and that's another thing while I'm at it. People who just leave their trolleys wherever after loading up their car. It's extremely irritating to drive round and round an almost full car park, then to see what looks like a space, only to find there are a load of abandoned trolleys in it. Is it really so difficult to take them back to the little trolley point?

Since the deeper trolleys have been introduced my shopping bill has gone up. There have been three occasions now where the regular shop that would have in the past cost around 30 quid has suddenly gone up to more like 45. OK, so I don't want to sound utterly stupid, and I know I could just put less in the trolley, but I don't think I'm the only person who uses the amount of space left in the trolley to decide when I've bought enough, and the fact is, the supermarkets know this, and this must be the main driving reason behind introducing the deeper trolleys.

Loyalty cards are another bone of content for me. All that nonsense about getting points are, of course, as we all know, just a trick so the supermarket can monitor your shopping habits. Yet again, the supermarkets are making me feel like a resource to be exploited to the full, rather than a human being and a valued customer. I recall when these were first introduced, and the strategy was to send you vouchers for things you didn't normally buy, to try and con you into spending on things you probably didn't want. They cleverly noticed I didn't ever buy any meat, so I kept getting vouchers for chops and steaks. Is there any chance I might not be buying meat because I'm vegetarian, d'ya think? Thanks a lot for that guys. I've since stopped using loyalty cards, I like to be deliberately premiscuous and change supermarkets as much as possible, shop at irregular times, buy random and inexplicable things, and quite often will pay in cash. If those bastards are trying to spy on me, they're at least going to have a really hard time of it and end up being bloody confused.

Special offers have long been another irritating con. Did I really want three tins of butter beans? No. Will I ever use them? Proably not. Do I actually like them? No. Again, I realise you are required to have a bit of intelligence here to see through these sorts of things, but I think you would be surprised by how many seemingly intelligent people are tricked into buying things they otherwise wouldn't have by this simple and effective method. So yet again, there you are, not the honoured and respected customer you'd hope to be, but a stupid ignorant cash cow for the supermarket to milk to their heart's content.

Another source of irritation I have with supermarkets is in a slightly different vein. For years we've been trying to get away from the class system in this country and what do the supermarkets try and do? They go back and re-introduce it in their product lines. With supermarket's own brand products there always used to be just one choice for the own brand version. They were typically a bit cheaper than the proper branded product, but this was fine by me - Heinz Baked Beans have a powerful brand image, which is very much burnt into our collective conciousness. The only real way for a supermarket's own brand to compete is on price - they wouldn't want to upset their suppliers by implying their own brand of beans actually tasted better than Heinz, so they go for making it cheaper.

Then came the hateful budget/normal/luxury divisions. Part of my irritation with this was the sheer lack of originality of the supermarkets - when any one company introduces something new they all have to jump on the same bandwagon, usually within days of each other. I think it was Kwik Save that started with their "No Frills" brand range. Admittedly, they were a special case as I believe they didn't sell any own brand products prior to that. But let's not muddy the waters. So quickly, the other supermarkets followed suit. Soon in addition to their "normal" range of own brand products, Tesco had their "Value" range, Sainsbury's had "Economy", Somerfield had "Basics", and so on. Eventually they each also went and introduced another range, presumably for those people that associated supermarket own brand products with either cheap and low quality or very cheap and very low quality. So Tesco also has "Finest", Sainsbury's also has "Taste the Difference", Somerfield has "So Good", and so on.

Interestingly there are three divisions in own brand product ranges which neatly fit the three classes in our society. Oh, how convenient. OK so the structure of our class system has changed such that it bulges in the middle now - having next to no manufacturing industry in this country we don't have much of a working class, and the upper classes just naturally seem to have thinned out over time. What upper classes are left probably get all their food mail ordered from Harrod's or Fortnum and Mason's. So in reality the product ranges probably suit lower middle, middle middle (?!), and the upper middle classes. Still though, the lines are there. Whatever happened to the days when you'd go to a baker and they'd just make simply good bread, enjoyed equally by everyone...?

From a conning you out of money point of view though, the budget/normal/luxury product lines serve the supermarkets very well. They make sure they can properly exploit all the different incomes of people coming into the store. No hint of luxury will be wasted on those on a low income, and you can guarantee all possible corners are cut in manufacturing the budget range. In the luxury range there are no doubt large profit margins to be had. For the middle range, they're probably often the same as the budget range but will address that sector of the market that aren't necessarily loaded, but are also too proud to have anything in their trolley with the word "economy" on it.

The list really could go on, and this could turn into a truly epic rant. I think you get the point though. Just about every aspect of the supermarket's business, from the design of their stores to the selection of their product ranges, to even the shape of their trolleys, is designed to exploit you and make you spend more money. Why do we just accept this? Don't we deserve to be treated with some respect?

Yes, I know, they're a business, and so they are going to try and make money. Typically though, most of the supermarkets already have very buoyant profits, so for them to continue to squeeze us like this can be nothing other than greed. Is it so unimaginable that a business would start up to fulfil a specific need in the community, and just do the minimum required to make sure they stay in business, and all of their workers are paid?

Do I detect a New Year's Resolution? Shop from small but friendly local Medina and Hargun stores?

Posted by dsp at 2003/12/31 15:53:22.

Harguns. Friendly? Hmm.

Posted by tom at 2004/01/01 20:28:28.

I dislike supermarkets, but not for the same reasons. What pisses me off about them is this: the big supermarkets have opened tons of big stores, and effectively killed off lots of smaller shops ... and shoppers are left with little choice but to shop at the supermarkets. So, really, they have something of a monopoly on our food-spending. So far, so good. But if you look at what they stock, you often find that the products are made in the very cheapest possible way, often exploiting low-paid workers in other countries, and then flogged to us at a premium price ... with little to point out their murky origins. Look at milk and vegetables: they buy carrots from one farmer for one year, and then choose to buy from another the next. Farms really don't work like that, because things take *time* to grow and ... well ... they have to be planned in advance. In recent years we've seen farmers spraying milk over their fields, to protest that they can't sell it at a reasonable price (yep- the big supermarkets won't pay them a fair price). Another case: examine the bunches of flowers the shops stock. I recently watched a programme about where these come from, and the answer is often "Kenya". The people are dreadfully paid, work truly shitty hours, and are exposed to all sorts of nasty chemicals (which probably wouldn't be allowed in the EU). Do they have a label saying "Warning: Sweat-Shop Produce"? I certainly didn't spot it. Next there's "Vegetables from foreign countries". This is an appalling scam. Why do my tomatoes come from Spain? Why did my celery have to be grown in Israel? Are we unable to grow fruit & veg in this country? Well, it seems it's *cheaper* to get the veg from further afield. This cannot make sense! The veg has to be transported half-way around the world, in a bloody great refrigerated container. If this is genuinely cheaper than getting from a British farm, then it is only because *somebody* along the supply lines is *not* paying for the full environmental impact of their activities. Lots of foreign countries don't have such strong environmental protection laws such as we do (and ours are still crap) ... and so it appears cheaper to get goods from these countries. It is all a bloody unscrupulous scam. Finally, I shall get to the point: you or I could innocently walk into a shop and buy the most ethically-challenged product in the world, and never know. We'll never know because they don't tell use. They don't tell us because they're so greedy. Their greed has led to the loss of choice of shops (buy putting small shops out of business) ... and so we pretty much have to shop there regardless. They take so much, and make themselves so rich, and are basically fucking-over everyone in the process. They owe us the truth - *that* is what I believe.

Posted by Jimmy at 2004/01/02 08:49:32.

Well said Jimmy! I think that's really sorted it out now - I was attacking how supermarkets treat their customers, and you attacked how they treat their suppliers, and thus, indrectly, the planet as a whole. So when you see the whole picture you realise what supermarkets really are: temples to greed, the principal world religion of the 21st century. They even make them look like churches, and they open on Sundays. When the revolution comes, I'll be the first person lined up outside Tesco with a shopping trolley (of the deeper variety) full of petrol bombs.

Posted by John at 2004/01/02 24:58:21.

It's not just supermarkets that do this.

It's just that groceries have reached - horror of horrors - the state of a "distribution-led market".

Producer-led markets, when a good is particularly popular so people compete to buy them, are good - the prices are high, but the producers are being rewarded for having made a good product. Consumer-led markets, when the producers compete to sell, drive prices down and are good.

But distribution-led markets - when the market is led by the middlemen who's job was supposed to be to shuttle goods from producer to consumer - are always horrid. Everyone gets screwed. The consumers get screwed because the distributors whack a high profit margin on stuff and don't discount - they didn't bear the production costs, and the distribution costs are often the same for everything, so they don't care if a particular item doesn't sell. The producers get screwed because the distributors can offer them lower and lower prices, knowing that the producer effectively cannot negotiate because without distribution they have no hope of selling their stock.

It's ridiculous that it happens in food, and it happens as well in media. Media is even worse, as there the distribution companies have an effective veto over what everyone gets to read/see/hear/play.

The only solution I can think of is the extreme one: nationalise the entire retail and distribution network and ban advertising. Of course the problem is that the government probably wouldn't run it properly either and it'd be worse than it is now :(

Posted by Mark at 2004/01/02 21:10:13.

John, just to mention your description: "Temples to greed, the principal world religion of the 21st century. They even make them look like churches, and they open on Sundays". Well, I have often thought this very thing. And they do indeed make them look like churches with all those spires & stuff (especially Tesco, where they sometimes even put a clock on the tower). As for "Temples to greed" - utterly (although maybe "Temples where we go to worship the great god Money" also appeals to me). Anyway ... here's another thing to mention: Christmas. Yes, it's maybe a little late to complain, but I though I'd get in my twopence-worth of complaint about how retailers have destroyed Christmas for everyone. It means thet we all have to spend lots of money (retailers gain) and that the poor old shop-staff have to keep the place open at unreasonable hours (retialers gain) and they often don't even get extra pay (retailers gain). The same goes for Sundays, really. Retailers (and especially supermarkets) are making a miserable country for all of us.

Posted by Jimmy at 2004/01/06 08:58:09.

I'm going to be contrary, because I feel that another point of view needs to be expressed.

In the middle ages, we farmed. Then came the industrial revolution and the main thrust of the country became industry and technology. Then people got rich and didn't want to work in poor conditions. So they got educated. With this education, they expect a high quality of living. I don't think I'd find John, Mark or Jimmy working in a factory.

The country has moved on from an agricultural one and even an industrial one. We now produce services - essentially intelligence. We are paid well and the expense of living is also high. The jobs are moving away from 'Miner' and 'Factory Worker' because you cannot afford to live comfortably like that. We're evolving past that.

So, these jobs still need to be done elsewhere. These other places are then given jobs and then that country will get a chance to move on.

Take Taiwan. Years ago, everything plastic came from there. Not anymore. Why? Because they have moved on. The people were not educated there and needed jobs as the population was so high, so their government allowed industry in. The people got jobs and then got more money, became educated and the industry moved mostly to the mainland China.

Or India. Call centres are moving out there. Because it is cheaper to employ them.

BUT! I hear you scream. THEY ARE WORKING IN SWEATSHOPS! You judge them by our standards, not the standards of their own country. The Indian call centres are very basic indeed and the pay is 'awful'. But not by the standards of the Indian people, they get paid well and live and work well.

Food produce is another example of this. Many countries produce more than they can use internally - so they sell it. They can sell it at the price that suits them. This is often less than us because our living cost requirement is so damn high. It has next to nothing to do with environmental impact! Spain has a workforce that is available for farming at a reasonable cost. Our farmers want to live comparably with the rest of our people. To do this, they have to charge more than the Spanish do because their cost of living is lower. Also, some foods grow better in different climates: tomatoes, for example, grow best in warm climates.

I know you're now thinking: "But they should be paid more, it's the distributors creaming tonnes of profit - the profit should go between the consumer and producer!". This is a very naive point of view, economies are delicate and must be balanced with care. If we started paying people in Kenya the same as we would here, it would unbalance their economy.

Also, on the point of Kenya - it is the Kenyan government who sets the rules for the Kenyan people. The industries abide by their laws and ethics of their country, not ours. The cost may be too high to run things our way in Kenya. I think the people of Kenya would rather have the jobs and the profit from export.

It's really easy to shock the British people because our living and working conditions are so high. I would be interested to see the other businesses in Kenya operating. I think you'll find they are worse or non-existant.

As for supermarkets, I like them. The little shops are expensive, never opened when I needed them, stocked very little, impossible to park the car anywhere and unable to offer discounts.

When I get in from work (7pm), I know there will be a supermarket open that will be able to serve me with a number of disparate goods. I would not have had the same joy with little shops. I would need several and they would not all be in the same place.

John's initial hatreds are very John-like and can't really be argued. However, when you start slagging off parts of society that is keeping you so well off (such as the ethics of international trade) I feel I have to step in.

If you don't like supermarkets, don't use them. There are little shops around still but you'll have to travel further, spend more and less choice.

Serve.

Posted by Rob Lang at 2004/01/06 24:24:55.

There is a huge envronmental impact from moving goods half-way around the world, and keeping them refrigerated during transit. The Kenyans (as a nation) may well be at fault for having poor health and saftety laws, but that doesn't mean that countries which are better-off should exploit people who are disadvantaged. And shops staying open really late ... is it *really* that convenient? For whom, exactly? It's certainly not convenient for people who have to work there all hours of day and night (I bet you wouldn't want to do it). I don't find it especially useful, and I tend to think that a "24 hour culture" is really just a retailer's idea for people to be shopping 24/7. If people didn't spend more as a result of keeping the shops open, do you think they'd do it? I'd rather use smaller shops, but many have been put out of business by these large supermarkets ... so I'm left with little choice. And it is *because* if this poor choice that I feel the large stores owe us mopre respect. When they buy things from an unethical source, they don't label it as such, so I buy it without knowing. These things are effectively being done in my name ... and that is the main cause of my objection to the way they behave. PS as it happens, I *do* work in a factory ;)

Posted by Jimmy at 2004/01/07 08:39:09.

Sorry didn't know you worked in a factory!

Moving on...

Exploiting the disadvantaged? Are we to trade with them at all? Are we to ignore them and not set up business there? If we do, we get accused of exploiting them, if we don't, we get accused of keeping the 3rd world as the 3rd world. We simply can't trade with our ethics in their country, so should we trade at all? I think we should - on their terms.

When automation hit the car industry, did you complain that it was unethical to destroy all these jobs, or did you praise the fact that people didn't work late shifts? Do you think the Police force are unethical for employing people during the night? Supermarkets employ more people and they choose their shifts. I know, I tried to get a job at one once. They essentially employ twice as many people so they can open late. A lot of people prefer the late shift - it's easier as it is quieter. Before they opened 24 hours, they used to employ people through the night to stock the shelves. They were paying for heating, lighting and all the rest, so they might as well open some tills. When I lived in London, I had a friend who worked in the local hardware store (a little shop). He got in at 6am to accept deliveries and left at 7pm with 1 hour for lunch. Tea breaks depended on how much work there was on. There was no sructure and he worked on the minimum wage. Had he worked at Tesco, up the road, he would have been better off in shifts and cash.

24 hour culture is a requirement of globalisation. I know people at my office who work in strange patterns so that they can interact with the Tokyo and New York offices. It's rare but I understand that the big office in London does much more of this. It's not so different to John staying up late to talk to Chie on the phone when she is back home in Japan. Modern society requires us to think more globally. The more we think more globally, the better. I agree that people spend more if the shops are open longer, but you make it sound like a consumer is forced to buy things! Would you have shops open for 1 hour a day so that people spent less? If you did this, the amount of cash rotation within the economy would fall. To keep things bouyant, people should not save: they spend, it's as simple as that.

I take your point about it not being environmentally friendly to move stuff around the world. How do you suppose we feed our people? Would you like to see the economies of fledgeling countries fall apart because their exports suddenly disappear, causing widespread poverty?

When you say that the food is not marked with the ethical source, whose ethics? Theirs? Yours? Mine? Also, if they mark this, do you want a choice of different ethical sources? Do you want to have 'utterly ethical' and 'inscrupulous'?

You seem convinced that supermarkets are unethical so perhaps you should not shop at them. You can choose not to shop there but you will need to travel to somewhere where there are smaller shops. They do exist. They're just not convenient. If you want the convenience of a supermarket with the ethics of a small shop, that's impossible. If you want small shops and supermarkets, then I might as well ask for a blacksmith as well as Halfords.

Posted by Rob Lang at 2004/01/07 10:39:58.

I'm not saying we shouldn't trade with poorer countries, but that we shouldn't exploit them. If they have laws which allow people to be treated in a way which we find unacceptable in this country, then why should it be acceptable that our actions cause the people in that country to be treated in the way which we find so unacceptable here? (Bit of a mouthfull, that sentence, but stick with it). If treating people badly is not acceptable here, then it's not acceptable there. The fact that they have different legal standards makes no difference ... *especially* when the poeple are being badly-treated as a result of the actions of supermarkets in *this* country. I think it is plain wrong. I believe that the vast spending power of the supermarkets allows them to ride roughshod over pratically every producer (whether local or foreign) and do great environmental damage in the process ... yet none of this is revealed on the shop shelves. Basically, they run the business in an extremely cut-throat manner. Now this might be OK for some businesses, but I do not think it is appropriate for food shops. We're going to *eat* that stuff they sell! We're not just going to look at it, or listen to it, or plug it into the TV to play a game with it ... we're actually going to *ingest* their products. We trust them with our personal survival and wellbeing. We have given them our trust, and I think in return that they should be trustworthy. I think that, when trusted with our food supply, they should be obligated to behave in an ethical manner because (as you point out yourself) I am not personnally able to grow or produce my own food.

Posted by Jimmy at 2004/01/07 13:01:24.

A well posed point. Consider this:

1. The lowest form of housing in Britain has running water and some sort of heating. Any lower than this and it's illegal. This is because we believe that there are certain comforts we are entitled to and it would be unethical of landlords to exploit poor people and not give them it.

2. The lowest form of housing in many parts of Africa is a shed. Let's call this probably place Africa X.

Therefore, if we set up a factory in Africa X, the workers are living in housing that is unethical by our standards but ok by theirs.

By your argument, we should not set up a factory at all because our standards of ethics are broken.

Setting up a factory to produce things for other countries is the same as trade. The goods are made by Africa X and then sold elsewhere. Money flows from elsewhere into Africa X.

If we don't set up factories, Africa X will be left behind.

As for monopolies, I would have to agree that they are bad and dangerous. I would also agree that they should be more responsible - seeing as food is a basic requirement of our lives. I particularly liked: "We have given them our trust, and I think in return that they should be trustworthy."

Unfortunately, every business is cut-throat. Also, I would think that campaign groups would have let the populace know if anything too nasty was going on. I would guess (estimation) that when they go looking for 'Powerful Company running roughshot', they find some harsh realities but also some economic benefits to the local populace and this turns a black-and-white situation into a grey area.

I'd recommend you write to a supermarket and see what you get back. You've got a strong argument and I think it would be interesting to see them squirm from under it.

Are you going to take any action against the supermarkets? Boycot them?

Posted by Rob Lang at 2004/01/07 13:44:34.

I think what frustrates me in all of this is more the motivation than the end result. We could argue until the cows come home about whether or not it is ethical to take coal from South Africa, and chew the cud endlessly about whether or not we should import tomatoes from Spain and have call centres in India.

The bit that really gets my goat (I personally am enjoying the repeated agricultural metaphors here, I hope you are too) is that when these decisions are made by these big companies one way or another, it's not the ethical, human or environmental impact that matters. It's all about the Benjamins isn't it? I can't imagine for one minute the CEO of any big multinational company sitting down with the board one day and saying, "look, guys, option A will make us more money, but we're going for option B because it lets us save all these cute little monkeys from extinction and gives better working conditions to the citizens of some third world country you've never even heard of".

I'd love to think there are call centres in India because the MD of some company went there on holiday, saw the apalling slums many people live in, and decided he had to do something about it. But let's face it, that isn't the reality is it? There are call centres in India simply because it's cheaper.

Greed drives all of these decisions. Like Jimmy said, would supermarkets open late if they didn't think they'd make more money by doing so? Would supermarkets do anything unless they thought it would make them more money? At the risk of sounding overly cynical, I suspect even donations to charity are more about PR than they are about making the world a better place.

OK, OK, we live in a free market, and so companies compete, and therefore they constantly try to stay ahead and make bigger profits. This is just a fact of life and I am well aware of it. But when these companies hold such power, and potentially make such a huge impact on society and the planet in general, shouldn't we at the very least be looking towards some stricter legislation governing the way such companies operate?

Posted by John at 2004/01/07 13:45:42.

Supermarkets work on dangerously (commercialy speaking) tight margins (2ish % I think). 'Sympathy sourcing' would raise costs and harm the consumer that cannot aford anything but the cheapest (blue stripe) products.

Does anyone one who has posted so far find that they are forced to buy the cheapest product because they would not be able to pay the rent, or... they would not be able to go to the pub?

Exploitation does exits, that why we are (in the main comfortable)

Posted by J Sainsbury at 2004/01/07 14:37:35.

John, if you legislate to restrict supply and demand (for whatever reason), we're not a free market anymore. Once you start legislating, when do you stop? How much of the planet do you save before we cannot operate anymore? If you do legislate, then we may be put into the position where we can't afford fresh veg anymore. How do you propose to solve that?

Mr J Sainsbury, I am in the priviledged part of the population and I appreciate that. I can choose to each what I like. I am not forced into buying anything cheaply because I have enough income to buy the products that Kate can make weird food out of.

Posted by Rob at 2004/01/07 16:56:25.

I don't see anything unreasonable about additional legislation - supermarkets are already governed by plenty of it, and as far as I know none of that has destroyed the free market and made us all destitute.

For example, clearer labelling. Some supermarkets are already very good at this (e.g. Marks and Spencers). Advances have been made here in the past, but more could be done. Simple things like this would allow individuals to make up their mind whether they buy a product or not based on it's contents, method of production, and origin. If everyone then, in full knowledge of this, decides they want to eat cake made with eggs from battery hens attended by enslaved pygmies and shipped from Tasmania, then so be it. However I think a large body of people, when informed and given a choice, would actually decide not to buy certain ethically or environmentally challenged products.

I think you hold the concept of a free market a bit too dearly. Our society isn't fundamentally built on the principle of letting everyone do what they want, and may the strongest win. We have laws which in general stop people from doing stuff they want to do which may have a negative impact on others. I for one like living in that kind of society. Clearly, at the same time we don't want to end up in a society where we're molly coddled by laws and instructed what to do in every aspect of our lives. However, I think a happy medium does exist somewhere in the middle.

In my opinion, there are aspects of the way supermarkets operate which are benefitting them but having a negative impact on others. In some of these situations I think additional legislation is appropriate.

Posted by John at 2004/01/08 09:21:57.

Just to add another point, I think your view of this is skewed by where you live. We are in a market town that still has a market every Wednesday where you can buy everything from scones to TVs and rugs. In addition we have a fabulous farmers market once a month where we stock up on meat for the freezer: its all organic and you are buying direct from a producer whose cows I see every day in the fields close to the town. We also have many thriving small shops; bakers, opticians, a bookshop, all of which do good business despite the presence of Budgens, iceland and Somerfield, to say nothing of the enormous Sainsbury's etc in Swindon. I do think that the tide is turning in the favour of the small producer as more and more people support them, but this takes longer to infiltrate the cities.

Posted by Alex at 2004/01/08 22:09:26.

"OK, so I don't want to sound utterly stupid, and I know I could just put less in the trolley"

correct!!

Posted by Rich at 2006/05/17 10:36:33.

if u dont like supermarkets, go to a bakers and a butcher and stop pissing and moaning about it

Posted by Rich at 2006/05/17 10:45:23.

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