Supermarket debate
Supermarkets wield immense power over the way we grow, buy and eat our food. They are shaping our environment, our health and the way we interact socially.
There is evidence that supermarkets have a negative effect in the following areas:
• Encouraging industrial agriculture and destroying small farms world-wide
• Chemical usage in food & farming
• The destruction of communities and jobs
• Food miles and climate change
• Undue influence on government
• The manipulation of health and safety requirements
• Shop-workers' and farm-workers' rights
• Competition
• Promotion of unhealthy processed food
If you would like to look closer at these issues then visit www.corporatewatch.org.uk/?lid=2596, where you will find more details with supporting references.
What you can do
There is a growing number of people who are unhappy that supermarkets have such a large influence on so many aspects of our communities. People are starting to
• think about the industrial processes that produce our food
• try to support local shops
• support farmers' markets, vegetable box schemes, and farm shops
• eat local produce in season where possible
• avoid imported produce where local alternatives exist
• grow their own vegetables
• keep chickens ...[more]
• set up local shopping cooperatives (see below)
Shopping Cooperatives
These are small groups of friends wanting to spend less time and money at supermarkets.
If you are interested in starting such a cooperative, you can visit www.sustainweb.org/foodcoopstoolkit and www.foodcoops.org, and see also www.lembas.co.uk for a supplier.
This is what we did:
We started our group in October 2006. We place a collective order every six weeks for store-cupboard items such as cereals, rice, pasta, dried fruit, tea, coffee, sugar, flour, bottled and tinned goods, and cleaning products. This is delivered by a wholesaler www.lembas.co.uk to one person's house, where the other members of the group drop in for coffe and collection of their shopping.
We aim to buy goods from small, independent suppliers and processors after researching their ethical credentials. We choose regional, organic and FairTrade goods as our preferred option.
Because we buy in bulk we are usually able to match, or improve on supermarket prices.
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