Do Big Supermarkets Really Support Communities?
Most of us have no choice sometimes to pop into a larger supermarket chain, because most of the independent food shops have gone. Unless you live somewhere with farm shops, you likely have to shop at them.
So then after you’ve bought things (that after staff are paid, the rest of the profits will zoom up to head office and out to shareholders), you are asked to put a blue token or whatever in a choice of your favourite local charities. Because that way the big supermarkets can say they are helping.
In fact, that’s not really the case. When someone buys from local independent shops, that money stays in the community (salaries, staff who buy sandwiches and beer at local pubs and outlets, even the signwriters benefit).
With big supermarkets, there are ‘local jobs’ (usually at minimum wage working for companies that earn billions). The rest of the money then goes to the manager, top manager and super-top manager. Then out to shareholders, and on big TV and newspaper ads, and ‘free magazines’.
Most big supermarkets are out-of-town (so local ‘communities’ can’t shop at them, having to make do with smaller express stores). Which are marked up in price in high touristy areas for more profits.
And most big supermarkets will fine you if you park longer than you should (so there’s no time to go and support an independent coffee or gift shop – by the time you’ve done your weekly shop, it’s time to drive home again).
This is profiteering pure and simple. Tesco made £3.1bn profit last year, and its dominance means it can squeeze suppliers, while boosting its own profits.
This then feeds into more food inflation and worsens the cost of living crisis, for workers and communities. It is obscene. Where is the off button? Sharon Graham (Unite)
Supermarkets Do Listen (to rich people)
Supermarkets often differ in what they sell, depending on where you live. For example, Budgens in the affluent town of Holt (Norfolk) offers organic produce in plastic-free packaging, no canned music and strawberries from 4 miles away. There is also a post office, same-day home delivery, electric car charging points and an upcoming solar panel on the roof.
Yet in Clacton-on-Sea (one of England’s least affluent areas – Nigel Farage’s constituency), the website for Budgens offers no local food, instead boasting of national lottery tickets, and special offers on toilet roll and giant bottles of Pepsi cola.
The Sad Sorry End Tale in Sheringham
A few years back, there was a goliath 13-year battle in the Norfolk town of Sheringham, to stop Tesco building a big supermarket, in one of the towns left without one. When Paul Kingsnorth covered the story in his book Real England, the battle was ongoing.
Things looked hopeful, when a local entrepreneur offered to fund an independent supermarket, even hosting cooking classes above it. And yet the council (the council!) received the proposal, then voted to give planning permission to Tesco.
Today (many locals are likely unaware of the history) it’s a busy supermarket, and of course Tesco ‘gives back’ to the community. But many independent shops there have now gone under, there are no ‘blue tokens’ in the box to help them. A community has been half-destroyed.
And now this beautiful little seaside town has another hit: after the council (this time) refused a license for Dominoes pizza (the town already has 40 indie food outlets), the government (the government!) override the decision, and it’s going ahead.
So now the town will be littered with white plastic sauce pots, and money will go out of the town, and up to head office of Dominoes (Michigan, in the USA).
Big supermarkets don’t offer ‘choice’. Try looking for a natural toothpaste, a hair dye without chemicals or a vegan cake without palm oil. Despite all products with long shelf lives (so they can’t say ‘we won’t stock them in case they go off’) you won’t find any.
Posher and Expensive (not necessarily better)
Some bigger supermarkets are independent, but don’t really fare much better. In East Sussex, local bakery chain Jempson’s has a supermarket in a local village, but you have to drive there (it even has its own petrol station).
And Booths (often called ‘the Waitrose of the North’) is too expensive for most people (the ‘ready meals’ are tremendously expensive, as is orange juice from a machine you use to make yourself).
Good food should be affordable to everyone, not just those who can pay for organic sourdough bread. Booths website boasts that it has ‘removed all plastic cutlery’. That’s because there’s now a single-use plastic ban, so giving it out would be illegal anyway.
A few years back, a truck of pigs destined for the abattoir crashed, leaving many dead and more severely injured. But despite animal welfare campaigners offering to take the recoverable ones to a sanctuary, the (posh) supermarket refused, and had them put back on the truck to be slaughtered, already injured and traumatised.
- Waitrose only stopped selling ‘dredged’ scallops due to protests.
- M & S has faced controversy over selling farmed salmon.
- Harrods sells foie gras, so cruel it’s banned to make here.
- All the big supermarkets only drop certain unethical suppliers, when horrible stories come out in the press, forcing them to act. If they were really ethical, they would have dropped these suppliers already.
