Supermarkets - are they ogres ?

[whiffey]

I have read stories, probably true, about how supermarkets bully their suppliers. But how bad is it, particularly when you have little choice ? I was brought up in the countryside, most of the veg was grown in the back garden, all eggs were free range from the small chicken farmer up the road, but where I live now I don't have that luxury. I have tried to use the small greengrocer just down the road, but his potatoes are green, his peppers are shrivelled and old, his sprouts are brown, whereas if I go into the Co-op everything looks and feels better.

Does home-grown really taste so much better for staple vegetables like potatoes - which I smother in salad cream and chilli sauce anyway. I would use good local produce but I can't find any outlets.

Do you think supermarkets are always the villains, or is it just a good evolution in the quest for higher quality ?

[nickmo]

HI W - dissapointing that there haven't been any comments, but I have to add my rant- s/markets are not so super - they are in the business of maximising profit for the floor space they have.

That generally means brands have to pay for the shelf space for promotions, shelf positions and gondla ends, so the shopper is presented with the most advantageous products - not the best necessarily in terms of 'local' sourcing, freshness - think why all the veg is so cold when you feel it - cos its stored, packed, delivered and sold from chilled to maintain coclour, not flavour.

Over processed foods - 68 things in an ASDA frozen cheesecake, 47 in a Go Ahead red pepper slice - home grown, farm sourced goods are fresher,more nutirious, more flavoursome and more eco too if that fits the require,emts.

Small scale greengrocers often find the buyer for a s/market has taken the A grade goods and thats why their stock can seem not the best.

Have a look at the http://www.bigbarn.co.uk site - put in your postcode and find a local box scheme for example that can provide seasonal fresh goods - & get your neighbours involved so there is more than 1 delivery made at a time which is nice and eco too.

If this is atopic you have some opinion about. have a rad of a couple of books - Felicity Lawrence's 'Not on the Label' & 'Shopped' by Joanna Blythman are exposes of the s/market business, plus there area few other titles that look at the impact of global food, farming practices and the supply chain that mihght open your eyes a bit.

It takes 20 tons of soy feed to get 1 ton of beef - easy to work out the costs of that in land use, fertilisers and other chemicals for the (poss. gm?) soy plants, CO2 emmissions for transport etc etc, bever mind the energy used to make the feed, as well as that involved in producing processed foodstuffs f

[tickledtrout]

We have just started to shop at Booths which is a local supermarket chain in the Northwest after years of shopping at Sainsbury''s or Tesco. This was due to my husband getting really fed up of seeing fruit and veg with labels saying grown in Peru for example. Everything fresh in Booth's is local produce and we both now enjoy our food so much more. We had looked into getting boxes of veg delivered but with only being two of us a lot would be wasted.