Dear Mark

Thanks for your email about our Fairtrade products.  I’m glad to hear that you’ve been impressed to see a wider range of Fairtrade products in our stores, including our own brand chocolate.

We currently offer over 800 Fairtrade products across our stores.  We’re constantly looking for new ways we can convert more of our products to Fairtrade suppliers, but with over 30,000 products for sale in store and online you’ll understand that this takes time.  We want to make sure that the suppliers are genuinely paid a fair wage for their produce and their working conditions are good, and it takes some time to make sure that this is the case before we start selling any of their products.

We stock over 30,000 products so we can’t possibly have every requested item in all our branches, however if there is a high enough demand for an individual item, we will always strive to find space for it on our shelves.  With this in mind I’ve passed your request to our buyers who will look into the feasibility of stocking Tradecrafts fair break chocolate biscuit bars in our stores.  Your suggestion that we convert our Double take chocolate wafer biscuits to Fairtrade has been logged on to our system and this will be passed on to the relevant department for consideration.

We’re grateful to you for contacting us as your feedback helps us to understand the needs of our customers better.  We look forward to seeing you in store again soon.

The point is this blog is to encourage you to e-mail your supermarket (whichever you choose) about making more products Fairtrade. Give specific examples of products you currently buy which you’d like to see Fairtrade and encourage them to stock more Fairtrade (E.g. when Cadbury made Dairy Milk Fairtrade ASDA removed Divine from their shelves…Sainsbury’s has divine side by side with their own brand and Cadbury!).

Oh and I know my blog has been pretty quiet lately…we’ve been on holiday and I’ve been busy with a little project which I’ll blog on soon!

* Sainsburys – If you’ve bothered to read this * then perhaps you’ve thought that Sainsburys expensive…well actually I don’t think that’s true…Tesco have been sneaking up their prices and still ride on the back of their reputation for being cheap from the 90′s, ASDA are cheap but some of their Smart Price products lack quality whereas often Sainsbury’s Basics range is the same quality (or better) as ASDA’s own brand/’Chosen By You’…In comparison to Morrissons they’re about the same…oh and naturally cheaper than Waitrose!

Since then and along with some conversations with Jo I’ve been thinking a lot more about ethical dilemmas…for example here’s an easy one;

Nestle Produce a Fairtrade KitKat…Should I buy it?

The answer is quite obviously no. Whilst it’s very nice of Nestle to agree to pay a small proportion of their farmers properly there is still child labour involved in the rest of their chocolate and their irresponsible baby milk advertising in the third world still makes them the most boycotted company in the world. (Read more about Nestle here)

However the Nestle dilemma isn’t what I wanted to blog about!

Dilemma 1: Local Supplies vs Local Produce

Ever since going supermarketless for lent earlier this year we’ve purchased all of our fruit and veg from a small, independently run farm shop half a mile from our house and from an ethical perspective this puts money back into the local economy rather than some rich businessmen. On a practice perspective we spend far less than we would if we went to a supermarket by getting the fruit and veg locally…add into the mix that it keeps far better and shopping locally is truly fantastic all round…however the farm shop doesn’t just source local produce but bring in a whole variety so occasionally have apples from New Zealand.

The ethical dilemma is this: Is it better to buy locally but with added airmiles (in the case of these apples) or better to buy supermarket french ones?

Dilemma 2: Tesco & ethical clothing?

As readers will know I boycott Tesco for a whole host of reasons including the way they bully councils and suppliers and even the way their business is run as a whole. However I have been informed that all of Tesco’s clothing is now completely ethical…sourced from a company that is renowned for having no flaws.

So the ethical dilemma is this: Is it better to buy ethically produced clothing from Tesco and in doing so put money towards the awful market practices and attitude of Tesco?

Anyway that’s just one thing I’ve been pondering…thoughts? Should airmiles and pollution be a priority above shopping locally? Does a companies shocking attitudes get canceled out when they support ethical issues in a tiny aspect of their business?

Comments???

You CAN make a difference!

Whilst it may seem like my dilemmas show that it’s very difficult to live ethically there are lots of simple things that do make a difference…buying Fairtrade chocolate, coffee, tea, sugar and other produce changes lives…it provides schooling and supports communities. So share your comments and buy Fairtrade!

We arrived at around 12 and joined the queue of people waiting to get in…after driving between holding bays, waiting an hour then moving again we finally pitched up around 3…sorted ourselves out and headed to the festival village.

I have to say I went to Greenbelt not knowing what to expect…my more liberal friends love it and my more conservative friends would offer advise to steer clear and so I headed to Greenbelt with curiosity, an open-mind and with the idea that I’d be able to make a more informed judgment on the festival.

Ethos

For starters Greenbelt has this massive social justice ethos going on…pretty much every trailer had Fairtrade hot drinks and you couldn’t turn a corner or enter a marquee without someone trying to sell you some Divine chocolate or a ethically traded/fairtrade t-shirt…there was even a t-shirt with the Tesco logo but with ‘Tesco’ replaced by ‘Fiasco’…awesome (I didn’t buy one!).

Add into the mix numerous stalls and seminars on human rights and justice plus a sign around every corner reminding you that if Greenbelt was Gaza there would be x amount of you…insert starving or something to that effect here.

I have to say that I really related to this ethos and loved the Fairtrade, ethical aspect…especially when the Fairtrade chocolate was cheaper than in the shops!

Music

The main thing that attracted me to Greenbelt was ‘The King Blues’ and ‘Luke Leighfield’ who would play gigs during the weekend…however throughout the weekend I caught some other bands too including an acoustic and mainstage set from Jars of Clay.

For me it was this mix of contemporary Christian music and more secular music that really made Greenbelt great…as a musician and huge fan of music I don’t want to watch 70 bands play ‘Shine Jesus Shine’ slightly differently, I want decent music and the balance of Jars of Clay’s ‘worship’ music and ‘The King Blues’ acoustic meets ska meets punk filled with the cry for social justice which lies at the heard of Christianity gave Greenbelt the right mix of music.

Other Seminars

Truth be told I didn’t make it to many seminars and spent a fair amount of time catching up with old friends who happened to be there (another aspect of Greenbelt that I loved!). I did, however manage to catch Mark Yaconelli’s 1st talk which was engaging, interesting and challenging, I attended a seminar for musicians called ‘DIY or DIE’ which gave some interesting pointers on how to promote your own music and some insights into the professional industry and I also found myself in a talk about how homosexuals were being persecuted in Africa and how (from what I was told) it was mostly Rowan Williams fault!

This mix of seminars perhaps sums up the range of Greenbelt…there was also lots of seminars on other subjects such as loving your enemies, confidence for women, Fairtrade and seminars aimed at lesbian, gay or bisexual Christians.

Whilst the broad range of topics being discussed would make some Christians say ‘noooo can’t have that at a Christian festival‘ I found that (regardless of the rights and wrongs…which I’m not going in to) Greenbelt was taking you beyond being spoon-fed. If you go to Spring Harvest you know what you’re going to get….you need not question what’s being talked about because it’s all very ‘nice middle-class church’ whereas Greenbelt challenges you….I wouldn’t say I’ve come back with different views but it’s certainly made me think.

So…is Greenbelt Christian?

The best way to finish this blog post seemed to be by asking an ambiguous questions (with a hint of the rhetorical) and not actually answering it! However…

The actions of Jesus show Him meeting those society didn’t like…the dishonest…the prostitutes…the mentally unstable…or as Scum of the Earth church put it ‘the left out and right brained’ and for me Greenbelt did just that. The Sunday service by the main stage was a pretty conservative church service…nothing controversial at all however it was attended by thousands of people who the general church would exclude…those who (for whatever reason) just don’t fit into mainstream church.

Regardless of your opinion of Greenbelt the organisers have managed to create a Christian festival that people are actually comfortable inviting their non-Christian friends too….I could see anyone I know who isn’t Christian having an awesome time at Greenbelt and discovering a bit of what God is about…maybe it’s just the addition of a beer tent or maybe it’s the diversity of Greenbelt but anyone is genuinely welcome at the festival.

Contrast this to Spring Harvest and I think I know what comes out on top…yes perhaps there are some things at Greenbelt which aren’t “Christian” but the festival is honest with people, open and accessible.

So would I go back next year? Yes….I think Greenbelt is what you make it…if you want to rant about the liberalness of Greenbelt then you can choose to attend the seminars that will make you explode…if you want a nice, safe Greenbelt then you can attend the seminars that match that…if you want to watch some good music and drink some beer then you can even do that…it’s what you make it!

Who wants to come with us next year?

When I started the pledge to avoid supermarkets for lent I thought it would be difficult…and in many respects it has been. The thing is we’re creatures of habit and so to get out of the habit of thinking ‘I’ll just pop to Morrisons’ and escaping that mind set was tricky to start with but I’m now in a new habit…the local farm shop (half a mile from my house) sells all the fruit and veg I need, equally the butchers or farmers market works for dead animal requirements and whilst the milkman is not a financially effective option for milk (and doesn’t deliver until 11 which is annoying) the mini-mart works for milk and beer.

The most difficult things to get without supermarkets has been cereal because it is so overpriced locally it’s crazy so I’ve been using home bargains for cooking sauces and cereals which means a trip into Hull (although when I need it I tend to be going in anyway) but the cereals are cheaper than the supermarkets which is nice.

Cost Effective?

So is it cost effective to not shop at supermarkets? If you’re a heavy drinker then the booze cost will hit you but I’m not and so my answer is yes! I’ve spent far less on fruit and veg than I usually would and they’ve been far nicer. Meat is fractionally more expensive (unless I get it from the monthly farmers market) and everything else which I’ve used home bargains for has been cheaper.

Interestingly this church times article agrees that local stores are cheaper than supermarkets

Time Effective?

Back in 2008 following on from the comments left by Laura in my post about Tesco I posted a blog titled ‘Easy Ethical Shopping‘ and having now tried ethically shopping for a month or so I think that you spend less time buying stuff locally than you would in the supermarket.

For example it takes me 10 minutes to get to the supermarket and I probably spend half an hour in there…that’s a 50 minute trip. If I pop to the butchers, bakers and fruit and veg shop I probably spend 5 minutes in each maximum and walking to them probably makes it the same time as the supermarket trip but I’ve been popping by them on my way back from places so it’s probably a half hour trip!

Will I be returning to the supermarkets on Sunday?

In short ‘no cos they’re closed on Sunday’…to answer the question properly I have to say yes and no. Supermarkets will cater for my beer, meat free mince (which I’ve missed more than I’d imagined), cereal etc but not for fruit and veg and maybe occasionally for meat! Whilst fresh bread has been nice I can’t eat it quick enough as one so I’ve wasted bread so I guess it’s back to supermarket bread!

So can we live without supermarkets?

That’s a whole blog post in itself! The problem is that supermarkets have rooted themselves too far into our society already, without supermarkets there’s many products we just wouldn’t be able to get because it’s simply not sustainable any more to have local retailers that sell all we need. If there’s a local butcher, baker or fruit and veg store then use them if you want to keep them but I don’t think you could have everything you wanted without supermarkets…but you can cut them out of whole chunks of your shopping.

And finally…

It’s been a very interesting experiment, I don’t feel like I’ve been enlightened by the whole thing…I’ve discovered local retailers I wouldn’t have known of otherwise but that’s it!

Local Veg!

I had a conversation with someone at church about farm shops last week and so decided to try and only buy fruit and veg locally…in theory much more of what I buy will be locally grown and the money I spend goes back into the local economy and not into the pockets of wealthy businessmen.

Onto the supermarkets!

Following on from my thoughts on the above I realised that it would be pretty easily to buy fruit and veg from a farm shop but I wondered what it would be like to avoid supermarkets completely and so I thought I’d incorporate it into my lent challenge.

Rules?

A supermarket is hard to define…for example I would probably not count my local cornershop as a supermarket yet Heidi would so I guess I need some kind of rules to stick to….

1 – The big 4 are out of bounds! – No Asda, No Tesco (the tricky bit!!!), no Sainsbury and no Morrissons….alongside this Waitrose and others are also not allowed.

2 - Mini-marts count – For the sake of lent my local corner-shop isn’t allowed for anything other than cereals, beer and other such things you cannot buy anywhere else without going miles out the way….whilst the village has a bakery, butchers and fruit and veg shop there is no beer or cereal shop and so traveling to Hull for such items would make the whole thing completely unethical!

3 – I can use: butchers, local bakeries and newsagents….alongside this specialist shops such as Wilkinsons can be used for cleaning products!

4 – I can eat pre-purcahsed items - If there’s something in my freezer from a supermarket or something that someone feeds me that is from a supermarket that’s fine!

The Cost?

Initial thoughts would be that this is going to be more expensive…but is this a big con of the supermarket or not? I’m going to try and keep a log of what I spend and compare it to what I’d spend in a supermarket.

Initial Thoughts

Bizarrely I’m a bit more nervous about this one than the veggiexperiment back in November, I think it’s going to be more challenging but it’ll certainly be an eye-opener of sorts! Let’s see what happens…maybe I’ll never use a supermarket again!

It’s the same with supermarkets, you reach the checkout with a trolly of food (in my case 80% impulse buys and 20% what I actually need) and the (friendly?) cashier asks you if you could like some carrier bags.

I am well aware that I’m not describing an unusual scenario yet despite taking lots of bags (and then re-using a few times or just throwing away) we forget the environmental impact of them.

Jo has worked on a checkout this summer and the typical response of people being offered bags is ‘yes’ or ‘yes, I’ve left mine in the car/at home/ in my pocket but I cannot be bothered to move my wallet to get them out!’ and I’m as guilty as the next person. 9 times out of 10 when I go shopping and forget to grab the bags for life from my kitchen… I even think about adding some to my car but keep forgetting to help the bags make the transition from my kitchen to the car.

This forgetfulness usually results in me buying more bags for life.

The problem is that somehow we need to stop using so many carrier bags.

Both Sainsbury’s and ASDA have done promotions offering bags for life to customers for free and encouraging them to re-use them next time (although most forget!), when I was younger Sainsbury’s used to give you 1p back per carrier bag you re-used (before the days of the Nectar Card and Bags for Life) and this encouragement continues in the form of loyalty points for re-using bags in both Tesco (eugh!) and Sainsbury’s but not in ASDA who don’t have a loyalty scheme just cheaper products.

When Aldi first opened in Bexhill where I grew up I remember us taking our own carrier bags because they charged for them so the few times we visited Aldi we took our own or just put the shopping in the boot loose because ‘we weren’t going to pay 2p a carrier bag’.

Years on from that Marks and Spencer’s charge for carrier bags and a WHSmiths in Sheffield station do the same (I don’t think this is all WHSmiths) but this trend hasn’t caught on.

I think it’s time that we started charging people for carrier bags in order to encourage people to reuse their bags….hitting people in the pocket may make them think about reusing, it would certainly make me remember to put the bags in my car!

I am challenging myself to actually remember to reuse my bags from now on and will make the occasional reference to my success of this on my blog (although I appreciate that how I use my bags doesn’t make interesting reading!)

On a completely contradictory tangent bags for life are actually worse for the environment because they take longer to biodegrade….cotton bags are better and probably last longer!

A couple of weeks back whilst in Sheffield the Tesco van decided to block the road and make a delivery to the store…so I waited for 10 minutes (see left picture).

If it was anyone other than Tesco I probably wouldn’t be that bothered but I grasped the opportunity to moan about Tesco to someone, took some photos and sent them by e-mail to Sheffield City Council last week.

On Thursday I received a reply from their highways and transport division and although it is advised that I pop in and let the local police know (which I may not get an opportunity to do so) it seems to reveal Tesco breaking the terms of their planning permission by using a larger lorry they are legally allowed… I’m hoping Sheffield Council will let me know what happens but we’ll see.

Anyway here is the e-mail

Dear Mark
The lorry you documented loading to the Tesco Express is clearly committing an obstruction. Unfortunately this matter can only be dealt with by the police. It may pay you to drop into the station at the end of Scotland Street and report this. With luck, they will send an officer round to explain the error of their ways.

From the Council point of view, this behaviour is not acceptable. There is clearly is a loading bay that would have been conditioned as part of the planning permission. It appears to me that either the delivery vehicle did not make a reasonable attempt to properly use the bay, or there was a car parked in the bay when it arrived or they are using a vehicle larger than anticipated.

If the vehicle was poorly parked because of laziness or because it makes it easier to off load from the tail to the service door then it is the police to deal with.

If there was a car there as it arrived then this is difficult to deal with. The service vehicle could wait and block the road until the vehicle moves or it could “go round the block”. I would suggest that with schedules to keep, they would be tempted to try and off load as fast as possible. One of the City Council’s Civil Enforcement Officers (traffic warden) may be able to enforce the loading bay and I will ask that this receives attention. The problem is that this behaviour is intermittent and officers cannot wait all day for an offence to occur.

On most planning applications of this type, the size of service vehicle is specified. Generally, the vehicle is limited to an “urban artic”. This is smaller than the vehicle on your photos. I will pass your email onto the Highways Development Control Planning Officer who dealt with the application. It may that the store is in contravention of its planning permission, in which case, enforcement action can be taken.

I hope that one or all of the actions above will help prevent the road from being blocked on a regular basis. However, I am happy for you to send me an details of dates and times that problems occur, this will help us to deal with this matter.

Here’s the planning link and here are the comments

I would like to object to the planning permission applied for by Tesco, I apologise for the lateness of this however the planning notice outside the store contains no date.

As a resident of the flats above I know myself and others in the building already suffer from the presence of Tescos. Currently most mornings their deliveries arrive at 7am often noisily. This is particularly an issue for myself as a student on exam days and also for many other residents who have been out the night before, disturbing much needed sleep and making the possibility of having a window open over night completely inpractacle.

An extension of opening hours, especially to 6am would cause this noise of deliveries to be earlier adding to the disruption in our area. These extra hours would also continue to cause parking problems in what is already a problematic area of the city to park in.

I hope you will take my comments and concerns into consideration when you make a decission on the application by Tesco.

Thank You

If you live in Edward Street Sheffield then please object to these plans, even if you don’t you can still voice concern whether you live in Sheffield or not…to do so hit the comments on the planning link (here)

One of my biggest frustrations over the last few years here at Peterborough is that everyone comes from so far to church, people don’t go to their local church but go to a church for whatever reason they have, a City centre church doesn’t always have a direct area to catch people from (although arguably no church does anymore) and one of the things I felt when having an interview at St Nics in Nottingham last weekend was that I’d feel the same frustrations.

I know that people will come to a church from miles off and that working for a church with some kind of community around it will never stop that, to an extent I’m in no place to say it’s wrong….my family attended a church 20 minutes drive from our house.

The thing is that from September I shall be a rural person doing church work at a village church where I suspect that many of the congregation will be from the village…the youth work will probably reach out beyond the village to the other churches I’ll be partnered with through the Hunsley Christian Youth Trust but there will be people from the village of South Cave at South Cave Church…and I want to be one of them!

I’ve been reflecting a lot on the message translation of John 1 when it says ‘the word become flesh and blood and moved into the neighbourhood‘ and I’ve been reflecting on this in two senses.

Firstly I believe that Jesus went out and got stuck into the neighbourhood and that is what the church should do….the church should get outside of it’s four walls and middle-classness and go out into the schools, onto the streets, into the local pub or wherever people are who need to meet Jesus…Jesus went and met with people!

Secondly I’ve been reflecting on this verse in terms of being part of something…being part of a neighbourhood. I don’t want to go into a village for church or to do some youth work, I want to experience what that village is like…experience the community in the local pubs, use the post office for banking, buy meat from the butchers, experience the frustrations and joys of being part of the village, celebrate in the lack of Tesco. To serve that community more effectively as a youth worker I think I need to be part of it!

So that is where I am at the moment and it means that I will be living in a village soon and I’m liking the idea a lot…I’m gonna move into a community…exciting stuff!

P.S. Hopefully this blog will be the start of some more serious blogness in the coming weeks!

So here is my last weeks catch-up…parts of which you’ll know if you follow me on Twitter!

Firstly last weekend I headed up to Nottingham and visited St Nic’s Church which, like Park Road is a City Centre church and therefore has a very scattered congregation. It was an intensive weekend interview meeting 3 youth groups, having 2 formal interviews, 2 lunches out with various leaders and attending a church service. The guest speaker was Canon Andrew White AKA the Vicar of Bagdad and it was great to meet him and have lunch with him on the Sunday afternoon, he’s a very interesting man…yet slightly odd…I suppose you have to be to become an Anglican minister in Bagdad!

St Nic’s is a great church with lots going on and lots of potential and the other job canditdate was great too (turned out we both knew someone…Christian incest) and the church informed me on Tuesday that they had decided to offer him the job.

Today I headed to South Cave, a town near Hull (20 minutes away) for an interview to become a schools worker and Church Youth Work facilitator for the Hunsley Christian Youth Trust. The trust is a partnership between 4 rural Anglican churches all very enthusiastic to work together and work in the 1800 pupil-filled secondary school. The location is beautiful yet close to main roads…and not a Tesco in sight!

Early this evening I was offered the job and after spending an hour praying and chatting to various people I accepted. Out of all the jobs I applied for this was the first and the one I got most excited about in spotting so I’m really looking forward to the new challenge from September. It’s going to be an exciting new chapter in an exciting new place and I’m looking forward to seeing what God wants to use me for!

In the meantime I hand my dissertation in on tuesday and have 2  months left here in Peterborough with only 20 hours work a week to do for Park Road so I fully intend on making full use of the Pummells gym and recording some guitar and vocals and hopefully completing a lot of tracks!

Sorry for the long post but I hope you find it interesting and if you want to visit the Yorkshire countryside from September you know who to come and see!!!

So here is my second letter from Tesco (click to enlarge)

It’s nice that he acknowledged that the first letter was badly presented, however all he has really commented on within this letter is what he had effectively stated on the first letter. The comments he shared about suppliers and Tesco were very vague and the webpage he directed me too is fairly bog standard company jargon and as numerous recent reports on the ethics of Primark show it doesn’t matter what a company states on their website or what Ethical schemes they’ve signed up to because ultimately they can do whatever they like.

I don’t think I’m surprised there was no comment on the way they bully local councils because if I’m honest I don’t think there’s much they can say to justify their underhand techniques used to gain planning permission.

Since I wrote to them the second time they have applied to double the size of the Stallham store in Norfolk, the store has almost practically gutted the town centre and made it a ghost town, doubling the size of the store (which will ultimately happen as they bully the council) will finish off the town completely.

I do not intend on replying to Tesco, I don’t think they will share anything more than is publically available on their website and I very much doubt that John Leiper really knows what the company gets up to, I suspect he is just another customer services employee, there to quieten dissatisfied customers.

However this doesn’t mean that my writings to Tesco have been a waste of time, letting companies know your annoyance with them is always worth doing and you almost certainly get a reply because the appearance of good customer service is important to them although in practice companies like Tesco’s can afford to lose customers.

I am quite happily boycotting Tesco at the moment and intend on continuing to do so and I hope that more people will take this incentive with time.

Shortly after they responded with a reply to my original letter which I post under the title ‘Correspondance with Tesco: Response’. Finally I have replied to their letter with the following reply, attempting to challenge their silence on the issues with their practices I highlighted in my original letter.

Dear John,

Firstly I would like to thank you for your reply to my original letter dated 17th November. I was glad to read that I have now been taken out of your Tesco.com and Tesco Clubcard schemes.

However in response to your letter dated the 7th December (ref: 8878436) I would firstly like to comment that the concern and disappointment you expressed in your letter would have seemed more genuine had you took the time to proof read the letter, in particular the opening paragraph which informed me that you were disappointed to find that I would be taking my ‘customer’ elsewhere.

I felt that this obvious lack of time over a reply made my comments nothing more than a result of a customer complaint procedure rushed through in the hope of quietening a disappointed customer.

Secondly in my first letter I made reference to your practices including the methods used by yourselves to obtain planning permission and the treatment of your suppliers both in the UK and oversees, I was disappointed that you had merely brushed over these comments and not made any effort to explain your policies and reasons for the exploitation of local councils, suppliers and farmers. I would very much like to hear your side of things on this matter.

I shall look forward to reading your reply and hearing what you have to say on these matters and I hope you can take on board the importance of proof reading.

Yours Sincerely

Mark Tiddy

However because the reply was in Hemsby and I was in Peterborough I only read the letter last night, so here it is! (click to enlarge)

Letter from Tesco

So there we have the response of Tesco, who are apparantly sad that I am taking my ‘customer’ else where…perhaps the letter would come across as more sincere had they bothered to proof read it.

There is no mention of my reasons for leaving them, no comment on my opinions of their practices or even denial.

However I am surprised to find they agreed to removing me from their system and it must have worked because I’ve received no e-mails from them in the last couple of weeks which is unusual.

I don’t think I’ve won against Tesco but nor did I expect to, a corporate giant like that cannot be beaten, however I still believe it’s important for every customer to have their opinion presented to companies, after all technially the customers needs should come first!

This young person raises an interesting point, in his neighbourhood there is a massive Tesco Extra and also a One-Stop (also owned by Tesco) so he has no choice of where to go on the way to school without taking a massive detour into the city centre and back…which would be ridiculous!

Laura also raises an interesting point on the comments to my ‘Correspondance with Tesco’ post. Laura mentions that for her and her husband shopping at Tesco is the best option, it’s closer, cheaper and the own brand ranges are of better quality than Asda. The issue of time when shopping around at numerous local retailers and transport was also mentioned in her comments.

These points both from the young person and Laura raise an interesting dilema. How is it possible for us to shop ethically in todays society? With all the current financial issues no-one wants to spend more than they have to and at the same time value for money is wanted.

Time is another big factor in ethical shopping particually for hard working couples or those with young families, the last thing they want to do is drag a stroppy toddler (or husband) around 6 different individual stores.

I’m not aiming with this blog to offer a solution but to offer some suggestions and thoughts on the subject.

Feeling

The average person will spend 6 months of their lives in supermarkets…now I don’t know how you feel but with the odd exception of Morrisons who’s fun ‘almost like a market place’ look amuses me supermarkets make me want to leave them almost as soon as I enter. The co-op foodstore is a little more bareable but still doesn’t keep my happiness for long…however my experience of Sheffield’s Indoor Market was positive…I casually wandered around the numerous stalls at my leisure and I wonder how much we take into account our enjoyment of shopping. So perhaps shopping where you’re happy is a big part of shopping!

Cost

The biggest factor for anyone when shopping is cost, you don’t want to pay more than you have to and it is commonly thought that out of the big 4 Tesco and Asda are the cheapest…to an extent this is true.

However statistically Asda is by far the cheapest supermarket, in the latest price matching exercise on mysupermarket the difference in prices between Tesco and Sainsbury only made Tesco cheaptest by about 15 products.

Another thing I noticed from Sheffield’s Indoor Market was price…you’d expect local retailers to be more expensive but you’d be wrong…often local butchers and fruit/veg stalls can be a lot cheaper than the supermarkets, for example a pack of 3 chicken breasts which would set me back £4 at Tesco even from their value range would set me back £2 at the Sheffield Market (although for Laura living in Norwich the travel to Sheffield to buy her chicken would cancel this out…and the rest!).

Quality

Linking in with cost the quality of products is also massive. Laura suggested that Asdas range of products were of poorer quality than Tesco…a lot of this is down to opinion but I think any supermarket’s value range manages to produce ‘polystyrene’ style breakfast cereal!

Time

The final factor is time…no matter how enjoyable it is wandering around a market the fact of life is that ‘you haven’t got all day’. Shopping often needs to be done quickly, often by a quick ‘pop’ into whichever supermarket you pass on the way home.

One thing I think that you cannot argue against is Laura’s point that shopping at individual stores does take a lot more time and so to make the committment to abandon your supermarket and go local is one that only a true hippy could manage.

So taking into account these factors I offer some ideas for ethical shopping!

Do At Least Something Local!

Perhaps you’re not quite hippy enough to abandon your supermarket however the main point of shopping in smaller retailers is about supporting your local economy…supermarkets bring very little into local economy often wiping out more jobs than they create…and any profit goes into the big shareholders pockets and not back into your neighbourhood

So if you’re lucky enough to have a local butcher perhaps start buying you’re meat there instead of one of the big 4, you’ll find that after a while you know the butcher, he’ll know what your usual is, he’ll remember that you don’t like the fatty bits on your bacon but you like your beef to drip blood like a sponge and importantly you’ll find it more enjoyable than your weekly grown down the aisles of Tesco before arriving at a checkout to find that a melon with no bar-code causes an extra 10 minute wait whilst you try and make idle conversation with the checkout assistant who has just hit puberty and can only just work out how to operate the convey-a-belt and till at once!

Ethical Shopping In Your Supermarket

No matter what websites say all supermarkets aim to put money into their shareholders which benefits rich businessment (other than Waitrose and The Co-op who are owned by their customers and staff) but there’s ways to shop ethically within your supermarket.

Buying Fairtrade bananas, coffee and tea is just as cheap at the regular so they’re a good place to start, if you have extra cash look out for other fairtrade products, avoid Nestle renound for their baby-harming practices and Maxwell House (owners of a tobacco company) and try and look out for local produce which hasn’t travelled for miles damaging the environment.

Time Saving…mail order!

My final suggestion will save you time in the aisles…many companies offer local, organic produce delivered to your door…the disadvantage is that often these are drastically overpriced (particually meat)…however look out for local farm shops and use them, often their produce is cheap and fresh!

Closing the post…

I guess this post has proven that there is elements of truth in Laura’s comments, that actually to shop ethically you need to have a little bit of extra time, although perhaps not extra cash! Abandoning the supermarkets for good is perhaps impossible but filling in forms requesting more local produce and more fairtrade items is something you can be doing.

Perhaps you can improve your weekly shop by looking out for the same check-out assistant…one of the biggest things we’ve lost by the increase of supermarkets and decrease of local shops is the ability to ‘get to know your butcher, baker, candlestick maker etc.’ so perhaps looking out for familar faces is a way to gain part of that lost community spirit back.

Most importantly though being aware of companies practices is worth doing, it’s worth thinking about the long term consequences and allows those with tight budgets to perhaps one day be able to shop more ethically.

Sorry for the ridiculously long post but hope it was worth the read!

In the last month I’ve been reading Andrew Simms book ‘Tescopoly’ which looks in depth into the practices of Tescos and the problem with the store on many levels. Having read this book I’ve been shocked at the way which Tescos treat everyone from suppliers (who they dictate prices too) and people who work for them (who they allow to worship themselves like a god) right up to local councils who are practically bullied into granting planning permission for Tescos because of the threat of an expensive, legal planning permission process if they turn down Tesco.

As a result of this I have made the decision to boycott Tesco stores…the only other company who I avoid are Nestle (although readers could argue I also avoid SSG Shops however I feel that they don’t really have stores to avoid!). I have just finished packing my clubcard and keyfob into an envelope alongside a letter informing Tesco of my decision and asking to be removed from their systems.

I am writing to Tesco not because I feel I can change them alone but because if they have enough customers who don’t go for their appalling antics then maybe they’ll be forced to change in the long run…if nothing else I am curious at their response to my letter (which I may publish on the blog)… Will they try and persuade me to shop with them? Will they actually remove my data (or state that they have)? Will they even reply?

I don’t know but the bottom line for anyone who is dissatisfied with a shop is that unless you let them know then nothing will ever change…how many people avoid companies without telling them? If a company know you are avoiding them then surely that makes far more sense!

We live in a world where it’s difficult to shop anywhere but a supermarket, I was in Sheffield a couple of weeks back and loved wandering around the indoor market browsing the numerous butchers and fruit stalls, seeing a massive variety of produce compared to Tesco…a few days later I spent ten minutes in a Tescos and felt stressed and fed-up. Consumers (like yourselves) have a choice, we always have a choice, if we didn’t use Tesco they wouldn’t exist, if we don’t campaign against new stores in our areas then they will ultimately take away our choice, taking away every independent shop from our local towns and villages. So think carefully about your shopping habits…think about whether you want a world of Tescos because that’s what we’ll get…if they wipe out all competition then does price matter? They can charge whatever they like…and already do in their ‘Metro’ stores where prices increase when there aren’t other shops in the locality!

Anyway here is my letter to Tesco

Dear Sir/Madam,
In recent months I have been looking into several aspects of your company including the data kept from the use of Tesco Clubcards, the methods which yourselves use to obtain planning permission for stores, the treatment of those involved in your supply line both in this country and oversees and the customer service experience I have personally come across in your stores. To be perfectly honest after this research I am appalled by the practices of your business and treatment of customers, employees, local councils and suppliers.

As a result of my findings I am writing to you to inform you that I will no longer be using your stores either for personal or work use (I should explain that as a youth worker I regularly run residentials for young people which require large shops to cater for), I am also including in this letter my Tesco Clubcard and Key Fob and request that I am removed from your Clubcard scheme, that my online account linked to my clubcard (under the e-mail e-mail address removed) is also removed and that I no longer receive any form of mailing from yourselves.

I appreciate that with the number of your stores in existence avoiding your stores may be difficult but it is something I am prepared to go out of my way to do.

Alongside the information I have been reading on your stores (including Andrew Simms book ‘Tescopoly’) my recent experience of customer services in your stores has been less than helpful. In my most recent (and what shall remain my most recent visit) I aimed to purchase some Fireworks and some shopping but was informed by one of your employees that I was unable to pay for both at once. When I explained that by purchasing these items together I would be applicable for a 5p off fuel voucher under your current promotion I was told that I couldn’t pay for both fireworks and shopping at once and would therefore not be able to benefit from your promotion (as a result I purchased Fireworks from an alternative vendor).

It is on that rather poor experience of customer services that I shall close my letter. I will look forward to hearing from you, if nothing else confirming that my Clubcard membership has been cancelled. I sincerely hope that in the future your company will begin to think about the best for your suppliers, employees and customers rather than your own profits.