Shopped

[tomweir]

I am very fortunate to live where I live. I am in Leitrim in the North West of Ireland and I have a range of organic producers near me. There is an Organic Centre nearby which trains farmers in organic production and I am a member of their CSA (which starts today :o) )

My village has a great old store in it, sells everything from locally produced patés to wellies to building supplies, and some very neat original Star Wars merchandise...as in original... some stuff needs the dust blowing off it, but the food is fresh and I have a standing order for some locally produced organic eggs which are from hens which roam freely up the side of the nearest mountain.

I am about 10 miles from Sligo town which happens to have two of the best delis in Ireland, Cosgroves and Kate's Kitchen, and it's oldest health food store, Tir na nOg, which stocks a lot of the locally produced organic veg and fruit. There's a couple of good greengrocers to boot. Oh and a Tesco and a Lidl and an Irish supermarket called Dunnes... and personally (after living in NYC) my favourite thing is that I can walk to all of them (bar the Lidl) and do my full shop in about 30-40 minutes.

No fishmonger bar Tesco and Dunnes's own counters. I live in hope. There's a good butcher in the village who has a sign in their windows stating whose farm they take their meat from. I don't eat meat but visiting friends (and my mother) are known to raid the place before departing for Dublin.

My Lidl run is for loo roll, OJ, juices for my kids lunches, and my wife likes their Bran Flakes. That's it. I heard their jams are okay but I haven't tried them.

My Tesco run is for some fruit like limes which may not be in the greengrocer or healthfood store, breads, kitchen towels, some cleaning products, baby supplies, bathroom supplies, kids pizzas, butter, cheddar, fish, water, tortilla chips, cheddar, Alpen, biscuits. It's certainly a smaller bill than some of the others.

One thing I have noted is that a lot of the more successful products in the delis or health food store end up with a stand in Tesco. They must have someone who goes out and sees what's selling and gets it.

[balex]

I am familiar with the supplier relationship. It is worth pointing out that not all are equal -- Sainsbury's recognised the problem and introduced their own code of conduct a few years before everybody else signed up to the joint code. Others are notoriously ruthless still.

Soups: I have in the past bought both the CG soup and the JS own brnd. The CG is clearly significantly better -- and a little more expensive. So I buy the CG brand. It is quite a clear choice. Other people may make a different choice. Again this seems both normal business practice -- you compete against someone by positioning your product slightly up-market or down-market -- and good for the consumer -- because we want a range of products at different price/quality points.

I don't understand your point about labelling laws -- we have them already don't we?

[Duncan]

I'm not saying that either price or quality follow a particular rule. For some things the supermarkets may even do better quality, though I now make a rule never to buy meat from Tesco since I spotted that their 'finest' range (which is supposed to be better) has an ingredients list for pork chops: their ordinary pork chops seem only to contain pork, but their 'finest' contain (if I remember correctly) glucose syriup.

I had some concern expressed over whether I could back up my claim that Tesco Finest Pork Chops contain glucose syrup, so just to clear things up:

The reason I may have sounded doubtful was that I thought they also claimed added water and salt, but I couldn't remember for sure so I just went and checked.

On the front of the packet it has 'Finest' and 'Pork Chops'.

Under the 'Pork Chops' in smaller letters it says with added water, glucose syrup and salt. It then has a short paragraph in the same size text about how they have been specially reared and matured longer.

On the back of the packet is the full ingredients list:

Pork 89%, water, dried glucose syrup, sodium diphosphate, sodium triphosphate, salt, sodium citrate, sodium ascorbate, sodium acetate, partially deoderised rosemary extract.

(The various chemicals are under subheadings such as preservative, but I was getting cold writing it all down next to the chill cabinet)

They also have pork steaks with added water, glucose syrup and salt in the Finest range, and ordinary pork chops and pork steaks with no additions.

[MobyP]

89% Pork???

That means the other 11% is water soluble chemicals, right? And six different versions of sodium? Is this their equivalent of brining? You think you're getting moist meat from the quality, instead it's packed with glucose and sodium.

Duncan - unless you're saving it for a science experiment, get the petrol and matches. Really, we'll have a whip around, and get you some proper chops.

Thanks for doing that. Maybe we should compare the ingredient list from the 'best' lines of other supermarkets.

[spatchcock]

I am familiar with the supplier relationship. It is worth pointing out that not all are equal -- Sainsbury's recognised the problem and introduced their own code of conduct a few years before everybody else signed up to the joint code. Others are notoriously ruthless still.

Non-binding codes and standards are just that, non-binding. Without a level playing field, the signatures have little meaning.

I don't understand your point about labelling laws -- we have them already don't we?

This, too, is an area where there is something in place, but largely toothless or full of loopholes.

Reconstituted fruit juice has little regulatory need to distinguish itself from a packaging point of view from pure fruit juice - pressed from ripe fruit, no additives. Look at the Tropicana shelf to see how closely you have to look to separate the wheat from chaff, so to speak.

In Europe, the European Commission caved to intense industry pressure to allow them to use significantly more milk and vegetable oils rather than pure cocoa butter to make your chocolate and still call it chocolate, despite the fact that this fundamentally changes the nutritional content and taste.

And it has greater impact than bad diets and obesity. By changing the definition of the product, they don't have to rely on the original source materials that combined to define the product. Imagine being able to market chicken livers as foie gras, and you get the idea.

At least we live in GM-phobic Europe. In the States, it took a lawsuit by Ben & Jerry's to allow labelling your milk (and other dairy products) as BGH-free. Such products containing BGH still aren't required to identify their products as having it. (That no one self-identifies is telling in itself.)

Now, if these are the shortcuts and end-arounds that branded suppliers are pulling, what can we expect from the murky world of anonymous suppliers beholden to own-branding supermarkets?

Edited June 10, 2004 by spatchcock (log)

[Duncan]

Duncan - unless you're saving it for a science experiment, get the petrol and matches. Really, we'll have a whip around, and get you some proper chops.

Here, I didn't actually buy the ones from Tesco. I just spent long enough looking at them to start getting funny looks from people. I did a quick price comparison as well:

Tesco Finest Pork Chops, £6.99/kg for 89% pork

High street butcher: £4.35/kg

Butcher where I actually bought some chops (because I think they are a good butcher[*]): £5.79/kg. I'm told the pig came from near Swindon.

I probably should point out that the chops from the butcher were actually more expensive (£3.04) than Tesco's (£2.79 for the pack where I noted the price), but that's because they are larger.

[*] This belief is based at least partly on one of my early visits to that particular butcher's shop when I asked for two pork chops and the butcher went through the back of the shop and returned with a half pig (head and tail attached) which he proceeded to joint in front of me. I knew chops came from a pig, but before that I hadn't really seen exactly where they came from. I also got to choose which end of the loin I wanted (this was back in the days when they could legally sell you a chop with kidney attached). The place has changed hands since then, but it is still a proper butchers.

[Winot]

I'm told the pig came from near Swindon.

Bet he wishes he'd stayed there.

[Carlovski]

Pork 89%, water, dried glucose syrup, sodium diphosphate, sodium triphosphate, salt, sodium citrate, sodium ascorbate, sodium acetate, partially deoderised rosemary extract.

Why partially deoderise rosemary?

Surely the 'odour' is part of the whole point?

[MobyP]

Nothing like a bit of crunchy rosemary in the morning.

[JasonCampbell]

I tend to follow a ‘do the best you can’ mentality. Like any wage slave I have X amount of £ to feed the family for a month, as a realist I buy entirely on quality and value. So it’s the supermarket for toilet rolls and alcohol, and the butchers for meat. I rarely eat fish as we don’t have a fishmonger and the supermarket stuff is dire. Lamb comes from the farm gate, costs about the same as New Zealand frozen stuff- but I tend to buy in bulk.

I think it’s nearly impossible to avoid the supermarket completely unless you have plenty of money, time, or both. But as the supermarket says, every little helps.

[Carlovski]

I can't see me completely boycotting supermarkets, I'm happy to pay more for higher quality, but for things which are no better, well I'll get them at the cheapes and/or most convenient place.

One thing I have noticed about supermakets though is the price 'compression', nothing is very cheap or very expensive - cheap cuts of meat aren't that cheap, but what should be expensive isn't that expensive either. There is a quote in one of Elizabeth David's books, in the recipe for breast of lamb St Menhould (Must have spelt that wrong!) that a cheap cut in a high class butcher is often cheaper than the same in a so called cheap one, and I agree.

[Stigand]

Finally got around to reading Shopped.

First of all: I found it very interesting, so thanks to tarka for the recommendation.

Secondly: I very much agreed with most of Joanna Blythman's conclusions - that we should shop less in supermarkets, and that the Government should take further action to respond to the Competition Commission's 2000 criticisms of supermarkets' relations with their suppliers.

But on the other hand: Quite a lot of the book got on my nerves - which is odd considering how much I agreed with the conclusions.

My objection was that although much of the criticism of supermarkets is fair, Blythman occasionally goes too far, and allows the other villains in the story to get off the hook too easily:

1. The British consumer's willingness to accept cheap, over-advertised, low-quality food never really goes under the microscope (it's just blamed on supermarkets' own marketing), even though (as lots of discussions on this board have noted) British indifference to good food seems to predate the rise of Tesco et al. (On p 61 Blythman quotes Jonathan Meades fulminating against exactly this, but chooses not to run with it).

2. Small local shops are held up as blameless victims in the tragic history of British food. Again, I think there's more to it than that - some small shops are downright bad, and some that are good have missed a trick in explaining to their customers why they're good. So Blythman glosses over the large number of poor quality local shops (when talking about butchers, say, her example is Lidgate, which is a wonderful place but hardly typical). In another section, she explains how greengrocers' produce is much fresher than typical supermarket fruit, which leaves me asking - why don't greengrocers tell their customers this?

So to reiterate: I found the book full of interesting stuff, and I agreed with most of its conclusions, but I think it would have been more convincing had it been less polemical.

[MobyP]

2. Small local shops are held up as blameless victims in the tragic history of British food. Again, I think there's more to it than that - some small shops are downright bad, and some that are good have missed a trick in explaining to their customers why they're good.

I was just thinking that most of the small shops in my area are themselves franchises, working on the 7/11 format of trying to please everyone.

When I think of the sorts of small shops to be held up as models, they all closed 10-15 years ago, either bought out, or shut down.

[fisherman]

supermarkets are evil creations. i made a panorama about them some years ago and the things we discovered were shocking, too many to go into here but a one that springs to mind is:

making a particular brussel sprout farmer produce only one type of sprout (not grown for flavour but for its shelf life) insisting he grows this sprout and only this sprout or they'll go elsewhere for their sprouts, then when he's turned over all his production to a vegetable he never even wated to produce they say 'ok, thanks for that, but you're too expensive, half the cost or we'll go elsewhere'

we interviewed a couple of ex supermarket buyers who confirmed this sort of thing is commonplace, not just with fruit and veg but with anything supermarkets bu off indenpendant producers.

since then i have almost totally weaned myself off supermarkets, i only buy meat, fruit and vegetables from local organic farms (leaving london made that easier as you can imagine) bread is either home made or from a local baker, eggs from our chickens, fresh herbs from the garden, loo roll and washing products etc come from local shops which charge a premium, but at least my money is helping local businesses not the supermarkets.

[Suzi Edwards]

1. The British consumer's willingness to accept cheap, over-advertised, low-quality food never really goes under the microscope (it's just blamed on supermarkets' own marketing), even though (as lots of discussions on this board have noted) British indifference to good food seems to predate the rise of Tesco et al. (On p 61 Blythman quotes Jonathan Meades fulminating against exactly this, but chooses not to run with it).

i think you've hit on something here. and it's encapsulated in a book by kate fox called "watching the english".

she's an anthropologist who has decided to look inwards at her own culture, rather than outwards like most do. she's just written a really accessible book that probes the british obsession with things as diverse as the weather and the class system. she has an entire chapter about the english and food.

my favourite point was about how the english actually view an interest in food as somehow pornographic and wrong. many of my colleagues sat around laughing when i was trying to organise my weekly organic delivery. they thought it completely insane that i would be telling a supplier that their cabbage was not of a high enough calibre. they find my boycott of supermarkets completely insane and call me a hippie to my face. they cannot work out why i walk to eat to get my soup for lunch when a local cafe of death type place is closer.

so, maybe we should all read "watching the english" next to try and explore why people are willing to accept such poor produce.

[Stigand]

'ok, thanks for that, but you're too expensive, half the cost or we'll go elsewhere'

we interviewed a couple of ex supermarket buyers who confirmed this sort of thing is commonplace, not just with fruit and veg but with anything supermarkets bu off indenpendant producers.

Depressing, isn't it. Blythman's book also gives lots of these shocking examples of predatory practice on the part of supermarkets. On this point I totally agree with her (and with you).

As far as I can see, this is a problem that has less to do with the existence of supermarkets per se than with the extremely limited degree of competition among UK supermarkets. The reason they can get away with treating suppliers so badly is because each supermarket represents such a huge source of business for even a large-scale farm that they enjoy huge market power. At the risk of using long words I don't understand, it's an oligopsony - which is often an economically inefficient state of affairs.

This is precisely the kind of area where the Government ought to act. The present Govt set up the Competition Commission to deal with just these kind of potentially anti-competitive industry structures. And as Blythman points out, the CC conducted an investigation in 2000 on supermarkets' treatment of their suppliers; unfortunately the follow-up on this by the Office of Fair Trading seems to leave a lot to be desired: a code of conduct that - at least judging by the examples in Shopped - is toothless. Arguably this is a case where better regulation could mitigate some of the problems of the food we eat in the UK.

(In light of this, it's, er, "presentationally awkward" that one of the largest shareholders in one of the UK's largest supermarket chains is both a minister and a major donor to the party of government. )

Edited July 6, 2004 by Stigand (log)

[susannahw]

Greetings, eGullet (!)

I agree with fisherman, that the biggest problem is the sheer power - and lack of knowledge - wielded by the supermarket buyers. Farmers get such a tiny proportion of the cost of every product that it is ludicrous - and the same regime applies to other suppliers, so Heinz are about as likely to be pressured as the own-brand manufacturers.

This, to me, is the single best reason for not shopping at supermarkets, wherever practicable (but I agree, if anyone can explain to me where else the cat litter comes from...). But I've been told - from a couple of sources, including farmers - that Sainsburys are about as bad as anyone else, and that the chain with the least bad buying policies are Waitrose.

But another reason that she makes clear is the vast distance that supermarket goods have travelled - even if you don't have that big a brief to save the environment, surely it's better to buy local, fresher produce that hasn't just done a quick tour of the country, simply for the taste? (cat litter excepting, obviously).

Susannah

[Suzi Edwards]

off topic i know, but if anyone can tell me where to get cat litter that's as good as sainsburies ultra clumping i will be *eternally* grateful. mine are not happy with the non-supermarket stuff.

pm me if you have any ideas.

so, back to our usual topic...

you'll be pleased to hear that i still haven't broken my boycott. although it's fair to say that eating out seven nights a week is a fairly full on way to do it...

[John Whiting]

. . . the chain with the least bad buying policies are Waitrose. 

Exactly. And it's true also of their paying policies -- the promptness with which they pay their bills. Food writers I know who have worked for them tell me that they are among the best employers in this area as well.

It's no accident that Waitrose/John Lewis are a partnership as opposed to a corporation. As one of their executives once said, "We are run by shopkeepers, not financiers." This means that they can balance the profit of one part of their operation against another, for instance using their hand-wrapped artisanal cheeses to support the makers and to contribute to the "tone" of the whole operation, without being forced by an eagle-eyed accountant to maximize profit in every single area.

We shop regularly at several Waitrose stores of varying size and location. For instance, we get supurb Sheepdrove organic chickens from their large new store in Mill Hill. If we can't turn the clock back to the long-gone local merchants, we can at least turn it forward to those modern institutions -- including ethical stores, farmers markets and direct internet sales -- that offer a realistic alternative.

[Adam Balic]

When I moved to Edinburgh from Melbourne one of the first things I did was ask people what day the markets were open and where they were located. That caused some laughs.

I spent a long time bitching about the dependence on supermarkets, but now have practically given up. I have very little knowledge of Southern UK cities, but my impression is that what markets that do exist are very middle-class. Being middle-class isn't the end of the world, but I don't think that it is realistic for people to expect their to be less dependence on supermarkets when there are few alternatives for a large proportion of UK society. I have a 'right on' friend who is single, lives in a very nice Georgian flat and only shops at Wholefoods, who insists that a family of five does not need a car as they can walk their shopping back from the Supermarket. I respect the effort that they make in their life, but it offers no solutions for anybody else.

It interests me to imagine what the state of food supplies will be like in the UK in the case where fuel prices increase. I fear the day when the extra-fine trimmed beans from Kenya become to expensive to import.

[Charlie O]

Has anyone read Not on the Label?

Its by another Guardian journalist and is along similar lines as Shopped. It focuses on the wider aspects of food production - the extract in the guardian on processed bread made me dig out my breadmaking stuff again.

Horrible.

Edit to remove link to Guardian article that has disappeared.

Edited July 15, 2004 by Charlie O (log)

[CheGuevara]

so, maybe we should all read "watching the english" next to try and explore why people are willing to accept such poor produce.

this comment is valid outside the confines of the UK, since it has its roots in a capitalist system which finds its growth in what we today bundle in the broad genre of “globalisation”. the primary issues discussed in this thread revert to a science, sociology – rightly so not anthropology – as it is here that we find the reflection of our collective decisions, where the unavoidable drawbacks and benefits of our chosen paths are displayed. in anthropology we can find a reason, or hope to, explaining our decisions as a species.

the supermarket is a result of our change in lifestyle; the emigration of rural life towards an urban environment, that which has been ingrained in us will take us to the unreachable grail. the poor quality of its products is due to a lack of education, since the capitalist economic system – which assumes rational beings operating in a free market by the laws of supply and demand – ultimately answers to its consumers. business exerts an inordinate amount of influence in such a system, a paradox considering they place their pockets ahead of the common good. someone asked what motivated decisions in the generic brands market – the answer is a cost benefit analysis, as is the case in 99% of business decisions. the engine of capitalism is "cost/benefit" – many here are in the restaurant business, if you pay attention, will see this being played out in every decision.

if we continue the generic goods discussion, there has been a confusion between value-added products marketed by big brands and staples or commodities. the supermarket move into generics is logical, why should the consumer pay more for a product of the same quality – so where is the difference? in the marketing expense incurred to sell you an image of quality, or even a lifestyle. why does kellog’s tell us “we don’t make corn flakes for anyone else”? because they have invested millions in developing their brand, and such an investment needs protection. a kellog’s corn flake is no better than a generic one, whose grain is likely to come from the same mill. negligent treatment of farmers by supermarkets, or anyone with sufficient bargaing power, is despicable, nevertheless comes as a direct result of our economic system. the perseverance of these practices is a result of our consumer preferences and tastes, or lack thereof. just take a glance at your neighbour in the aisle, preferably a mother shopping with her three adolescents, and examine her shopping cart.

a sociological eye will tell us that we have benefited from futuristic innovation at the expense of our roots, our grounding in this earth, which we have yet to learn to live without. it is not only the UK that suffers from it, and it not exclusive to gastronomy; look at our pop charts, the literature that sells, the poetry that doesn’t, hollywood ready-made meal equivalent movies. this is endemic to our society. that hidden pearl in our profit driven system is the consumer, it holds the only winning hand in a game that’s not much fun to play. and that gives me hope.

my moniker aside, i'm not a social activist, and have worked at the symbolic epitomy of a capitalist system, but i've also come to understand some of the things we've left behind in search of human advancement. the origins of man, like any other living creature, by instict incessantluy seeks security, reproduction and food - they are the three inalienable neccessities of a living organism. how does one explain food, beign so critical to our survival, has degenerated so much, that you find people asking for peaches in the winter?

-che

edit - i can't type

Edited July 15, 2004 by CheGuevara (log)

[Suzi Edwards]

how does one explain food, beign so critical to our survival, has degenerated so much, that you find people asking for peaches in the winter?

I think it's about people believing that greater choice is the same as better food.

I had an interesting situation recently, I took a friend to Trio. On the way there we started chatting about best ever meals and amazing food experiences. He said that he didn't have a "best meal ever" because since he walked the Appalachian Trail eating freeze dried food for 6 months, he viewed food as fuel. He was as openmouthed at my reverence of food as I was at his willingness to eat brown sludge.

As it was, we both ended up having a great meal. He'd never eaten anything like the food before and loved the experience. I loved watching him get excited by something he'd previously not seen as important.

[jimbob]

I wont comment on your political views as I don't think this is the place, but:

a kellog’s corn flake is no better than a generic one, whose grain is likely to come from the same mill.

As a long term corn flake eater I can assure you there is! Give me a blind tasting and I will get it right 100% I bet.

Years of studentdom soon teach you the quality difference between own brand goods and the 'real thing'

[PS]

Does anyone know any butchers/fishmongers that stay open late, say to 7pm? If I leave work bang on time (5.30pm) I can get to my local butchers (just) and just about get to the fishmongers, although most of the slate has been cleared by then. If, however, I'm delayed for a few minutes at work then I'd better have something in the fridge at home as nothing is open. I know butchers/fishmongers tend to open early and are often family concerns, but surely they are missing a lot of custom if they are only open when most of us poor sods are cooped up at work. They seem to still be working on the out-moded model that assumes the wife of the family doesn't work and so does the shopping during the day.

Currently, I buy bulk dry goods like washing powders, toilet rolls, etc from the supermarket online as I don't have a car, but anything resembling decent food comes from, eg, the local butcher. But I guess I'm lucky to live in the centre of Edinburgh where a) cars aren't necessary (for my lifestyle, at least) and b) there are decent butchers and delis within walking distance.