What’s wrong with ‘local food’ in supermarkets?
- Most local produce in supermarkets has arrived there via a central distribution network. If you buy Chewton Mendip Cheddar cheese in a Bristol supermarket, it may have travelled from the Mendips via a central depot in Birmingham before it gets back to Bristol. Bristol Friends of the Earth are investigating to see if any of our local supermarkets have the power to buy local produce locally.
- The supermarket way of ‘piling it high and selling it cheap’, favours large producers who can supply in bulk, and countries where labour costs are low, over buying from small, local producers.
- Supermarkets tend to stock varieties of fruit and veg that are uniform in size, travel well, and have a long shelf-life. This means that local varieties get lost, in favour of bland, standard-sized crops. The supermarkets promise us greater consumer choice, but their policies mean that we actually have less choice.