Supermarket Sweep

It feels like it’s been a while since I wrote on here.  It’s interesting reading back over my previous post about make-up from over 2 months ago now – I don’t think I entirely kept to the second part of my make-up fast (only wearing make-up at weekends until the middle of June), but I am definitely wearing make-up less, thinking more when I pick up the mascara and haven’t bought any new make-up since.  However, my good friend, Nat, has found a site which sells ethical, organic, home-made make-up (if anyone’s interested: http://www.etsy.com/people/BeneficialMinerals?ref=ls_profile&add_user_to_circle=BeneficialMinerals&show_panel=true)

Anyway, onto the real topic of this blog – my third main fast of the year – supermarkets.  Ouch, this one was hard!! I didn’t quite manage to do a full month (didn’t want to inconvenience friends / family etc), but I did 6 weeks, with the exception of 3 days in the middle, without buying anything from the big 9 supermarkets (see table below).  And sometimes I ate some interesting meals as a result!  I had no idea how dependent I was on supermarkets – and that wasn’t even the reason I decided to boycott them.

So, some of you may be wondering, why give up shopping in supermarkets?  It was when I was studying my undergraduate degree that I first realised the devastation that UK supermarkets have caused to local economies not just in the UK but to communities across the globe.  I remember being shown a short film in a lecture about farming in sub-Saharan Africa and how Tesco treated farmers in countries that produce a lot of vegetables and fruit sold in their UK stores.  I was shocked when the farmer was not only talking about how farmers were beaten and punished if the produce did not look perfect when it was harvested, but also that he thought that Tesco was the whole of Europe because the quantities of perfect produce they farmed were so huge.  

More recently, BBC’s Panorama highlighted the horrific conditions that many farmers and manufacturers work under so that we can consume high-quality food for as cheap as possible from supermarkets: http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b00wyh2f/Panorama_Supermarkets_What_Price_Cheap_Food/

Anyway, I decided to spend a month or so trying to boycott supermarkets and doing some further research about the ethics behind the 9 biggest supermarkets in the UK.  I came across this really insightful study, which I have summarised in the table below (http://makewealthhistory.org/2009/03/10/which-is-the-most-ethical-supermarket/):

Supermarket	Fairtrade	Environment	Animal Welfare	Co-operative behaviour
Co-op
Waitrose
M&S
Sainsburys
Morrisons
Tesco
Asda
Aldi
Lidl

Green: Pretty good, for a supermarket!

Amber: Could do better / some areas failing in

Red: Pretty shoddy attempt / no effort at all

I found this study really helpful to gain a good perspective of the different areas each chain is choosing to focus on and make a difference in.  It is, of course, a subjective piece of research and other ethical studies have come to slightly different conclusions (see http://www.ethicalconsumer.org/BuyersGuides/Food/Supermarkets.aspx).  The main thing I felt challenged to campaign about from this research was, however, that the cheaper something is to buy, or if I feel like I’m getting a really good deal on my tomatoes or apples etc, how much less is the producer getting paid?!

I think the main thing that I was reminded of during this fast was how many people in the world suffer so that I can live a comfortable Western life – I have the power to choose what to eat, what to buy, and who to buy it from and yet so often I don’t even consider the person at the start of the supermarket chain – the producer, who is probably paid next to nothing.  

I know that it does not seem entirely possible to not shop in supermarkets (I couldn’t even manage 6 weeks) and it could be very expensive (as well as very inconvenient) to buy all your food and other necessities from the local butcher, market, cornershop, but I would like to challenge anyone who might be reading this to think about the buying power they have and how they can use that to promote more ethical values in the future.