On the 3rd November
2005 TV News programmes in the UK reported that several dairy farmers
were pouring their milk down the drain in protest at the low prices
they were being paid by supermarkets for their produce. This was just
one of many protests against the tyrannical manner in which large
supermarkets are driving farmers to bankruptcy and putting local high
street shops out of business, reducing the nutritional quality of
food and imposing degrading working practices and poor pay on staff.
60-70% of all food in the UK now passes through four companies; Tesco,
Sainsbury, Safeway and Asda-Walmart. This control over the food chain
allows supermarkets to determine the price they pay to farmers. Farmers
are forced to take that price due to there being no other buyer left
in the market place. This price-setting power, together with the requirement
by supermarkets that farmers either supply them on a large scale or
not at all, is behind the continuing industrialisation of agriculture.
Big farmers are getting bigger to survive while small farmers are
going bust. This is leading to prairie farming monoculture and unemployment.
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'
