Supermarkets have become necessary evils in the pursuit of convenient lives for the majority of the Western world. Undoubtedly for those on low incomes they have been very helpful in helping to maintain a comfortable standard of living on a low budget, and this is often forgotten by those who rush to condemn. However there is a good case for arguing that supermarkets perpetuate themselves by forcing alternatives into a position where they cannot fairly compete – witness the death of local stores, butchers, bakers, cornershops all going out of business as the latest 24 hour supermarket moves into the neighbourhood promising everything you ever need to buy under a single tarpaulin.
Here’s a statistic that may shock you – for every £1 spent by every household, 49p of that is spent in a supermarket. Of this 49p, 33p is spent in one of the four largest supermarkets which are Asda, Tesco, Morrisons and Sainsbury’s. So for you, as someone who wants to shop ethically (we hope, otherwise what are you doing here?) your choice of supermarket is crucial.
Positives associated with the proliferation of supermarkets:
- Easier access to Fair Trade products
- Easier access to organic produce
- Easier to discern whether products contain GM food – M&S has a non-GM policy for all of its products.
- Allows consumers to determine their style of living with a lot more choice than if the only shop on the high street was a butchers that sold parsley and cucumber as ‘vegetables.’
Negatives brought about by the presence of supermarkets:
- Accused of ‘destroying’ local communities by creating empty high streets with none of the traditional trades able to compete with these all-powerful conglomerates.
- Supermarkets promote industrialised farming methods – so the more the better, that sort of philosophy, leading to poor treatment of farmers and producers who are in no position to bargain with the supermarkets who in turn can dictate what price they are willing to pay.
- Transportation for the food to get to your plate – food miles – is a big concern. We have situations where food is exported at exactly the same time as the same product from abroad is imported, or where we import food we could easily grow ourselves. As if the carbon emissions concerns were not enough, consider the plight of animals transported in cramped containers hundreds of miles to be slaughtered.
Case example: your Sunday roast
Chicken from Thailand 10,691 miles by ship
Runner beans from Zambia 4,912 miles by plane
Carrots from Spain 1,000 miles by lorry
Mange tout from Zimbabwe 5,130 miles by plane
Potatoes from Italy 1,521 miles by lorry
Sprouts from Britain 125 miles by lorry
This works out at a total of 26,234 miles for a lunch that, if you’d bought the ingredients at a local farmers market, might have reduced the total journey to just 376 miles!
How to be an ethical patron of your supermarket:
- Find out about the various supermarkets and their practices, only go to those whose ethical practices you agree with.
- Reuse your old carrier bags or use cardboard boxes
- Try to use your local shops as much as possible.
- Buy food from your local markets – and walk!
- Pay attention when you’re buying at a supermarket – try to buy goods that are produced as close to home as possible.