Unicorn Grocery (Manchester)
Just 50 years ago, there were few supermarkets: people visited the greengrocer, the baker etc to buy their food. Today, nearly all food in England is sold in massive supermarkets, mostly out-of-town so people without cars have to buy their weekly shop at a ‘local express’ shop, which often has higher prices.
Not everyone can shop online (and often it’s not very efficient – you could order a whole shop, and end up with items missing or subs, not good if you’re planning recipes through the week).
Before cooking, read up on food safety for people and pets.
Run an indie shop? Many seeds, flowers, plants (and plantable cards) are toxic to pets, so learn what not to sell to households with pets.
Michael’s Wisdom on Supermarkets
American food campaigner Michael Pollan says that big supermarkets are there to make profit, and don’t care a jot about your health. He’s right, if you listen to what he says:
- A supermarket that cared about your health, would have aisles and aisles of fresh produce. Instead, all have two to three aisles as you walk in, then the rest of the aisles are all filled with processed more profitable foods, and alcohol.
- Milk and bread (and other daily staples) are always at the far corner, so you have to go by all the ‘offers’ (never on broccoli!) to find what you want.
- Cheap low-profit cereals like porridge are always on the bottom shelf. Never at eye level, like the sugary higher-profit breakfast cereals.
- Sweets at the checkout have now mostly disappeared, but not always (cheaper supermarkets like Lidl often have snack bars etc as you wait in long queues, as they don’t use self-check-outs).
- There are no clocks or windows, to make you lose track of time. Some (like Co-op) blast loud music, at certain beats to try to hypnotise you into buying more. Not only is this music annoying, but can literally cause ear pain to older people with hearing aids.
A Co-operative Grocery in Manchester
Unicorn Grocery is a thriving Manchester food co-operative that is owned by its staff (who get paid a real living wage). All items are vegan (2500 foods) and fresh produce is from its own farm (with England’s first living roof on a commercial building, to support habitat of the endangered black redstart bird).
It also offers organic beers and eco-refillable beauty and household items, sold in plastic-free packaging. Salads and olives are sold in reusable tubs, and there’s even a soup cup deposit scheme.
Get discounts with the loyalty card. Prices are very good (due to no shareholders and most produce is local). A few items cost more (like homemade organic flapjack).
The ‘Good Stuff’ apple logo indicates favourite companies. With no plans to expand, you can download their free Grow a Grocery guide to bring the same to your town!
Why Do Supermarkets Differ So Much?
A good example is Budgens. This is low-cost supermarket has branches nationwide. But they are poles apart, depending on where you live:
In Holt (an affluent Norfolk town), the supermarket offers organic vegan products in plastic-free packaging, no canned music and local produce (strawberries are from just 4 miles away, and there is produce from 50 local supplies, delivered straight from the field).
There is also a local post office, same-day home delivery, electric car charging points and an upcoming solar panel for the roof.
Yet in Clacton-on-Sea (one of the least affluent towns in England – the local MP is Nigel Farage), the website for the branch offers no local food, and instead boasts of national lottery tickets, and special offers on toilet roll and giant bottles of Pepsi cola.
The Holt store only has one bad review (for car park light pollution, which would affect birds and wildlife). Yet the Essex store has poor reviews (not for staff, but lack of disabled facilities and customer service not responding to damage caused by deliveries). It seems one law for one..
Do Supermarket Support Communities?
No, most just finish them off. Yet we end up having to shop in them, because there are no indie shops left.
A few years back, there was a goliath 13-year battle in the Norfolk town of Sheringham, to stop a Tesco being built in one of the few towns left without a major supermarket. One local entrepreneur even volunteered to fund an indie supermarket with cooking classes above.
The local council received the proposal, then voted Tesco to win anyway. Today it is a busy supermarket, but many indie shops have since gone to the wall. There is no point asking you to put ‘blue coins’ in a box to help communities, if the community has been destroyed.
Also putting 2-hour parking limits is not helping communities. That means after a person with a pram or wheelchair has done their ‘big shop’, they have no time to go into town, to enjoy a coffee in an indie coffee shop. They would be fined.
And customers don’t get ‘choice’ in big supermarkets either. Try looking for a vegan cake without palm oil, or a natural toothpaste or hair dye in a supermarket. You won’t find any.
England has a few ‘independently-owned’ big supermarkets, which are slightly better. In East Sussex, the local bakery chain Jempson’s has a big supermarket outside a local village (you would have to drive there – it also has a petrol station).
Booth’s is often called the ‘Waitrose of the North’. It’s quite posh and expensive, and you can buy slightly better foods like COOK meals (and there’s a fancy machine to juice your own oranges).
But other than that, it’s nothing special. And good food should be for everyone, not just rich families that can afford to pay for organic sourdough bread.
The Booth’s website boasts that it has ‘removed all plastic cutlery’. But that’s because there is now a single-use plastic ban, so giving it out would be illegal anyway. Greenwashing!
A Fab Vegan Supermarket in Brighton
Now this is more like it! Kindly (Brighton) is a big busy vegan supermarket (which offers carbon-neutral home delivery) that was founded by an Internet techy wizard, who got bored and decided he wished to do something with his money, to do good.
His aim is to ‘flip the supermarket model on its head’ and put planet before profits. His supermarket even offers vegan sandwiches in compostable packaging (handmade in Brighton).
A Zero Waste Supermarket in Birmingham
The Clean Kilo (Birmingham) is England’s largest zero-waste supermarket, founded by a couple that use a tare system to weigh food, so you never pay for packaging (which makes up a third of the price in normal shops).
Beautifully fitted, the shop includes chilled plant milk dispensers, and machines to make your own orange juice and peanut butter.
Most food is organic and bought in bulk from local suppliers (even the crisps) and they use a reusable Brummie Cup that you can return after use. Alas it has no lid, but you could use a reusable silicone coffee cup lid with it.
A Package-Free Online Supermarket
Forrist (use coupon FORXENGLAND20 for 25% off pantry items – minimum purchase £40) lets you stock up on pantry essentials, with more affordable ‘waste saver boxes’ that are nearing their best-before date (if you intend to use them up soon).
Best-before dates are about quality, so the food should be safe to eat if eaten up quickly, it may just be a bit ‘past its best’ (for instance, spices may not be quite as spicy!)
It sells a wide range of organic groceries (grains, pulses, rice, pasta, nuts, seeds, oils, flours and baking essentials). Just select what you need, and it’s weighed in a paper bag.
You also can buy packaging-free herbs and spices, to add seasoning to homemade dishes.
A Low-Cost Zero Waste Supermarket
Despite its ‘posh image’, some people in Berkshire struggle financially. True Food Co-op is a zero-waste supermarket, where members pay a one-off £5 fee for exclusive discounts (volunteers earn up to 15% discount off food).
The shop has a refill station, organic alcohol and orange stickers for value basics, to help people on tight budgets. These are not ‘cheap inferior products’ but organic foods that still work out cheaper than brands in major supermarkets.
As members have shares in the shop, you can order in anything you like. So if you want say a couple of cans of organic soda, they’ll order in wholesale, and then just sell the rest of the cans in the shop to other customers.
The New Affordable Social Supermarkets
These are not ‘eco supermarkets’, but are increasingly becoming popular, as food prices rise. Company Shop offers free memberships to people on means-tested benefits who live locally, they are like member-only supermarkets, that sell surplus items at greatly reduced cost. Approved Food is an another place that sells nearly out-of-date food that is safe to sell.
Surplus to Supper lets people fill their shopping bags with surplus food items, then pay with cash or card, or pay a donation to help keep the scheme running. You get great deals, help others and stop food waste.
