Another serious source
of waste is the amount of travel involved in bringing food from its
source to the supermarket shelf. A typical family lunch is estimated
to have travelled 26,234 miles. A report, by the UK Department of Environment,
Food and Rural Affairs [DEFRA], estimates that transporting food to
and around the UK produced 19 million tonnes of carbon dioxide in 2002,
of which 10 million tonnes were emitted in the UK - 1.8 per cent of
total UK carbon dioxide emissions. The report says that the overall
social and environmental cost of food transport is £9 billion
with impacts on road congestion, accidents, climate change, noise and
air pollution.
There are many aspects of supermarket activities that involve scandalous
waste. Due to the vast distances that supermarket food travels, the
time it takes to make that journey, and the need for the product to
be stacked on a shelf, dropped into a trolley and fitted with a barcode,
supermarket food is encased in far more packaging than is used by local
production and distribution networks. It was also the supermarkets who
dictated that the returnable bottle disappeared; returnables only work
on a regional basis, not the national and international scale of the
supermarket. All of this leaves an ever growing waste mountain, much
of which is multi-material (eg cardboard stuck to foil wrapped in plastic)
and therefore impossible to recycle. This means it must be buried (to
pollute the soil and water) or incinerated (to pollute the air), the
cost of which is met by the taxpayer not the supermarkets.
The appearance of fruit and vegetables on the shelves is put before
flavour and nutrition. For example, at the supermarket distribution
centres, potatoes are scrubbed and the small ones rejected. They must
be oval and without blemishes. In this process 30% are wasted. An organic
supplier may have to reject 15% of his/her crop before delivering to
a distribution centre where a further 25% (40% altogether) are likely
to be rejected. The farmer will only be paid for those accepted. Farmers
are treated in a shabby manner and must suffer further loss of profits
when supermarkets decide to do 'buy one-get one free' promotions. It
is the farmer who carries the extra cost, not the supermarket. Dairy
farming is in crises, mainly as a result of the low prices paid to farmers
for milk - 3,934 dairy farmers have been put out of business in the
past 3 years. The dictatorial power of supermarkets over their suppliers
is described in the year 2000 independent report of the Competition
Commission "We received many allegations from suppliers about the
behaviour of the main parties [supermarket chains] in the course of
their trading relationships. Most suppliers were unwilling to be named,
or to name the main party that was the subject of the allegation. There
appeared to us to be a climate of apprehension among many suppliers
in their relationships with the main parties" (Blythman,2004)*.
Shopping at supermarkets is destroying British agriculture and ruining
the countryside.
At the end of September
2005 the UK Government announced that 'junk food' school meals will
be banned and that extra funds would be provided to give children nutritious
meals with adequate amounts of fruit and vegetables. This decision followed
a high profile televised campaign by the TV personality, Jamie Oliver
(who, surprisingly, has advertised supermarket products) exposing the
poor quality of school meals throughout the country.
This came after an equally damning series of programmes about the way
British based supermarkets were providing poor quality food high in
sugar, salt and saturated fats, including fruit picked early from the
far corners of the world and bread made with enzymes to increase shelf
life.
Many of the chickens ending up on supermarket shelves had a miserable
life suffering in large sheds or in cramped cages and so overfed that
their legs cannot support their own weight. This is evidenced by bruise
marks visible on the birds displayed for sale. This meat is high in
saturated fats (linked to heart disease). Nearly a pint of fat can be
extracted from just one bird.
Duck meat involves
even greater cruelty. Ducks are also factory farmed and are not provided
access to water on which they can swim. Not one duck farm supplying
meat to supermarkets conforms to the RSPCA Freedom Foods standard. Steak
often comes from cows that do not have access to grass pasture but are
instead kept in pens with concrete floors. In all cases of factory farming,
animals suffer either from disease or disabilities. 20% of cows are
in pain at any given time.
There is even greater animal cruelty involved with meat sourced by supermarkets
from abroad, produced under conditions which would be illegal in the
UK. It is the long distance haulage of livestock, brought about by the
insistence of supermarkets on using just a handful of mega-abattoirs,
which was a major contributing factor to the spread of foot and mouth
disease.
Shopping at supermarkets supports factory farming, poor animal welfare
and the spread of disease.
People can only
eat so much food, so logic dictates that shopping at supermarkets puts
village shops and high street stores out of business. Every supermarket
that opens results in a net loss of 200-300 jobs, as a whole network
of local shops and their suppliers is destroyed. Whereas money spent
in independent shops tends to stay in the local economy, supermarkets
act as giant vacuum cleaners; sucking money out of an area and putting
it into the bank accounts of distant shareholders.
Shopping at supermarkets dismantles communities and undermines local
economies.
In 2003 a House
of Commons Committee blamed supermarkets for fostering an environment
that allows gang masters to recruit foreign casual workers to pick fruit
and vegetables for a pittance. The exploitation is even greater in relation
to third world suppliers and this can make one of the biggest contributions
to supermarket profits.
In the case of the price of bananas a typical chain of exploitation
provides:
Plantation worker 1.5%
Plantation owner 10%
International trading company 31.5%
Ripener distributer 17%
Supermarket 40%
A similar pattern applies to other foods grown in the third world.
The takeover of
Asda by Wal-Mart has compounded problems for Caribbean banana growers
who were already hurt by the World Trade Organisation's ruling that
the EU's special trading arrangement for West Indies bananas, had to
end. Asda decided to source all its bananas through one supplier. Del
Monte put in the lowest bid and obtained its bananas from large-scale
plantations in Latin America. Asda has caused large reductions in the
retail price in the UK from 114.1pence per kilo in 1990 to 79 pence
in 2003. At the same time costs to suppliers have risen because of the
conditions imposed by supermarkets, such as mixing different degrees
of ripeness in a single pack (Myers, 2004).
In the USA in Mar 2001 Wal-Mart had 3,000 stores with 950,000 employees.
Wal-Mart did not allow unions and the wages of $2-$3 an hour were much
lower than at unionised stores. They were paid only for the basic 28
hour week and overtime was not allowed. In June 2003 one single mother
with two children earning $6.25 an hour worked out that she could not
provide enough for the basic needs of her family if she were to have
done all her shopping at Wal-Mart.
Workers abroad supplying
Wal-Mart products fare much worse. China Labor Watch reported that in
factories of the Guangdong region of China workers were getting an average
of just 16.5 cents per hour for a 7-day week (McCool, 2004)*. In 2001,
the US National Labour Committee found that Wal-Mart was paying many
suppressed workers seven pence an hour. In September 2005, a US labour
rights group filed a civil action on behalf of people toiling in the
Wal-Mart supply chain, including a woman in Bangladesh who was forced
to work seven days a week, from 7.45am to 10pm, for six months without
a break. Compare this with the personal fortune of the Walton family
(the owners of Wal-Mart) of more than £100bil. Wal-Mart pay poverty-level
wages. At the time of taking over Asda in the UK they offered just £7,000
a year for a full time job. Wal-Mart are anti-trade unions (they are
however required to allow union membership in the UK). When a store
in Quebec became the first to vote for full union recognition, they
closed the store down completely as a fiscal punishment to warn others
across the world not to get any fancy ideas (The Independent, 20th Sept
2005).
In their never ceasing quest to drive down prices paid to suppliers
and so increase profits, supermarkets are increasingly sourcing the
food they sell from the developing world where wages are low, working
conditions poor and pollution laws non existant. This leads to countries
who can barely feed themselves seeing their best agricultural land producing
food for UK supermarkets at rock bottom prices.
The drive to provide out-of-season fruit and vegetables means that 95%
of fruit and 50% of vegetables in the UK are now sourced from abroad.
Despite the fact that there are 700 varieties of apple grown in Britain,
only a small range are found in supermarkets and most are from abroad.
Strawberries, usually El Santa, with little flavour, are favoured even
when English strawberries are in season. A new profit making development
is to sell packaged fruit and vegetables at inflated prices to the lazier
consumers. For example, 512 gms of unpackaged whole lettuce cost only
58p, whereas packaged lettuce can cost 66p for 200 gms, nearly double
the price. Packaged fruit can have 50% less nutritional value compared
to fresh unpackaged fruit
Shopping at supermarkets exploits both the people and the land of
developing countries.
Supermarkets aim
to maximise profits on a national scale and tell farmers to grow two
or three varieties of crops in large enough quantities to supply all
their stores. The result of this is more use of chemicals (less varieties
equals greater threat from pests and diseases) and a subsequent loss
of wildlife and threat to health.
Shopping at supermarkets reduces both biodiversity in the countryside
and choice for the consumer.
Supermarkets relationship
with its suppliers resembles that which exists between multinational
companies and nation states. Potential clients are played off against
each other to get the best deal.
Supermarkets are spreading their influence across the country like a
cancer. Perhaps the most insidious aspect of their rising power is their
avowed intention to expand into the non-grocery market and it is small
businesses and very soul of our town centre environments that will suffer
as a result.
Friends of the Earth (2005)* warn of the effects of Tesco's dominant
position in the UK:
Local traders are being pushed out of business by new Tesco stores reducing
consumer choice and damaging local economies
Tesco fills its shelves with imported produce instead of supporting
UK farmers; surveys by Friends of the Earth have shown that at the height
of the UK apple season well over half the apples on offer in Tesco stores
are imported.
Farmers in the UK and overseas are being bullied by Tesco buyers as
the company passes costs and risks back down the supply chain
As alternative shops are lost, access to healthy food could be affected.
Tesco performed poorly in a recent rating of major retailers contribution
to healthy diets carried out by the National Consumer Council
Workers overseas growing and packing food for Tesco and UK home workers
assembling goods for Tesco are not getting basic employment rights
Tesco, like other big supermarkets, causes environmental damage by transporting
food long distances, over packaging its food, and building stores which
are highly inefficient in terms of energy use.
Supermarkets are also seeking to influence school policies and chidren's
attitudes by providing benefits to schools. There are dangers to democracy
when multinational companies gain influence over school policies, irrespective
of whether or not this furthers their commercial interests. Many corporations
will regard generous donations of school equipment as a sound investment
for creating a good public image and securing future profits from consumers
who might remember the support they received while at school.
However, these so called 'benefits are not always what they seem. In
2001 the 'Which' magazine exposed the real purpose of an apparently
generous scheme by Tesco involving vouchers that customers could use
to get free computer equipment. 'Over 23,000 schools benefited' so Tesco
claimed. 'Which' calculated that 4,490 vouchers would provide a school
with a scanner. That meant that shoppers had to spend £44,900
in Tesco to get enough vouchers to buy an item that Tesco itself sold
for £80. A school would have to generate £208,800 of Tesco
shopping to receive £1,000 worth of equipment. In 2002 alone,
Tesco distributed over 273 million vouchers for the scheme. In 2003
university undergraduates received an invitation from Asda Wal-Mart
to participate in a '£6,000 giveaway' using their enclosed 'Asda
gift card'. Although '120 lucky winners' might each get £125 (hence
the £6,000), the promotion turned out be a ploy to get the parents
of the students 'top up the student's cards' by shopping at Asda. These
supermarkets, by wooing young people, seek to make them 'part of their
communities'.
Don't shop at
supermarkets
Despite the corporate might of the supermarket, the greatest power still
lies in the hands of the individual - the power of the purse.The only
hope for Britain's farmers, the global environment and your community
is for the UK to return to a position where no single business is responsible
for more than 1% of UK food retailing. The only way this will be achieved
is for the public to boycott supermarkets and instead support independent
stores, farm shops, farmers markets, veg box schemes…
Shopping at supermarkets is the past
- the future starts today!
*
Blythman, Joanna (2004) 'Shopped - The shocking power of the British
supermarkets', Harper Collins, London
McCool, Grant,
Reuters 9/2/2004
Friends of the
Earth (17/1/20050, 'Tesco's Growth: Every Little Hurts'
