Tesco announces half-year profits of £1bn and makes no secret of its plans to get even bigger. Cue image of Terry Leahy sneering and stroking a white cat.
The growth and success of the supermarket industry is a cause of great angst in England. We are not good with commercial success anyway, but when it comes at the expense of hard-working farmers, the environment and our social fabric, then the indignation rises like bile from the pit of our stomachs. Actually I think there’s a lot of self-loathing involved here, particularly from the middle classes: we actually love all the store formats, from the mother-ship hypermarkets to those cutesy Tesco-express/M&S Food outlets where we queue on Tuesday evenings to pay for our scallops, but we’d just love it if things could be like they were in Heartbeat.
Are the typical complaints against the supermarkets justified,, and to paraphrase John Cleese, just what exactly have these big retailers ever done for us?
They put hard-working earthy folk like farmers out of business
Yes farm employment and incomes have been falling. But productivity gains are as much to blame for falling employment. That the productivity gains are not translated into higher earnings is less a story about powerless farmers being squeezed as the competitiveness of the UK farming sector. Fortunately, falling prices for me, means more money to spend on, well food. Combined with an increasing interest in the quality and source of our food, farmers’ have responded to the consumers’ appetite, quite sensibly, by supplying direct through farmers’ markets (link to growth).
Hypermarkets destroy town centres, creating social and cultural vacuums
The decline of town centres as a place where people met over the butcher’s counter to gossip over the vicar’s wife probably have more to do with the rising participation of women into the workforce and the effect that’s had on shopping habits. We don’t pop out every other day for our supplies because we’re at the office. For the many that do shop every day it’s more likely to be for convenience foods long after the butcher, the baker or candlestick maker has shut up shop. Don’t underestimate the importance of consumer transaction costs in all of this. How many of you have the time to visit a butcher, baker (early in the morning, naturally), grocer, fishmonger and deli on a Saturday afternoon and still leave time for a latte with your friends? And speaking of Lattes, have you noticed all those coffee shops springing up in town centres. I’ve seen people in there sitting for hours, chatting and just hanging out. Old people as well! Town centres as social vacuums? No, don’t buy that one.
Supermarkets through their convenience formats, create Tesco towns
Homogenised centres with the same identifiable genes that slowly kill off local speciality shops. Here’s a thought: perhaps that homogeneity reflects your own boring plain vanilla self. If you really cared about variety, go to your local ethnic area and shop there, or order salmon direct from a farmer in Scotland or a seasonal organic vegetable box from Abel & Cole. If you don’t do these things then you probably place a higher value on cheap prices, convenience and ease, than on true variety.
Supermarkets fly in strawberries from Africa in December, thus polluting the environment. We should stick to local and seasonal
Firstly, shops sell what we want and if you want summer pud in November, then don’t get so righteous. Secondly, modern supermarket logistics are incredibly efficient and minimise transport costs as far as possible. Yes, we should definitely pay the carbon tax for the vegetables flown in from African but this might amount only to about 1p on a 100g bag of groceries. Far more damaging to the environment are all those trips to farmer’s markets in SUVs.
How do I shop? Local Ocado for regular deliveries. Organic veg box once a fortnight. Proper butcher for entertaining (which we do a lot of), ditto fishmonger. Convenience named supermarket in town for one-off items; corner shop for papers and other nick-nacks/treats once I get there, and Tooting High St/ farmer’s markets etc. for when I’m feeling in a browsing mood or looking for something different.
I never will drive to a supermarket because it’s a waste of an existence. As the bank advert says, there is another way, several in fact so if you don’t like it, switch.
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