Where do you Shop?

Most people have a love hate relationship with supermarkets, even those that are uncritical of aspects of their businesses. Personally I love them as places where you can find a whole range of difficult to locate ingredients. However this only applies to the styles of food or cooking that is in fashion at the moment. While Thai food in now in vogue at the moment, the ingredients are there. This is where the supermarkets do genuinely respond to consumer demands. That said often the prepared foods are actually poor imitations of what real Thai food is like. This is simply because in trying to sell the maximum volume, they make it more bland and acceptable to more pallets.

This is where the supermarkets are really frustrating as because they follow food fashions, ingredients that they could stock and often have done in the past, they will de-list purely because that line doesn't make them enough money. While supermarkets are businesses who need to make a profit, where they fail as businesses is to maintain the range of ingredients that would support people who want to cook.

Further this is where people across the spectrum also hate the supermarkets, simply as they fail to give the consumer what they want. I can see many people will be perplexed by that statement, but the supermarkets actually sell what they want to sell, not always what people want. This is best illustrated by the TV chef Hugh Fearnley-Wittingstall and his campaign to raise welfare standards for poultry in supermarkets. During the period where the programmes were aired on TV, Tesco for example (I only use them as an example, I am not singling them out) reported an increase in the sales of their standard (the lowest welfare standard) Chickens. Tesco and the media assumed that this was an indication that the public did not care about welfare and it was only price that mattered. However, that sudden rise in sales was in part that new customers had suddenly discovered that (at the time) chickens were being sold for two for five pounds sterling. Among these new customers were many fast food restaurants who discovered that Tesco were selling chickens at less than they could buy them wholesale. Equally Frescos reported that there was only a marginal increase in sales of higher welfare standards chickens. This was simply that there were not the stocks on the shelves for consumers to buy.

The point is that like all businesses, Tesco misunderstood what the public wanted and even with the recession there is a switch towards the better quality, higher welfare standard poultry. A clear example of the supermarkets imposing what they think the consumer wants rather than genuinely listening to what their customers really want. Further, while the example of the lowest welfare standards being forced upon the public could be seen as the supermarkets just misunderstanding their customers concerns, and all the major retailers were guilty of this, there are examples where supermarkets deliberately mislead their customers.

The main way that the supermarkets do this is with labels that are designed to deceive the customer of the providence and country of origin of meat. It happens with meat as the supermarkets use loopholes in the regulations to do this and with other food products those are not as easy to abuse.

As the regulations, at the request of big businesses, were made simpler to allow only the final country where the final assembly, mixing or preparation of a food to appear on the label as its point of origin. The major supermarkets soon realised that they could buy cheap meat and cheese from anywhere in the world and as long as they did the cutting of the joints and packaging here they could call it British. And its here in these types of practices that the supermarkets genuinely fail to give the consumer what they want. The supermarkets are actually sell what they want to sell, not always what people want as people want to buy local and British when they can, but are prevented by being misled.

Therefore if the supermarkets were genuinely just responding to consumer demands, they would be supporting local food and local farmers much more than they currently do. Even supermarkets that trade on their ethical stance in other areas of their trading fail to support British farmers.

Therefore no matter how much we love or hate our supermarket, we all have to use them. This is where being wise about what you buy from them can really help your budget and your cooking. Most supermarkets have their fresh produce right by the entrance, even though that is the worse place to have it in relation to doing a normal supermarket run. As often it can take time to get around these warehouses of shopping and the fresh greengrocery will then be rather wilted and tired by the time you get it back home. Also they prefer us to buy in pre packaged quantities. Thus your choice is actually rather limited in supermarkets. While they may seem to have a wide range of different types of vegetable in stock, when you compare with a traditional greengrocer you start to see the range is actually rather limited.

The other aspect is cost. While the supermarkets can be cheaper sometimes, on Fruit and Vegetables they are often not. As simply the small independent retailers knowing that they have to compete with these major retailers will beat them on price. However, there are some of the smaller shops that seem to think that just being cheaper will win them customers. The best of the smaller retailers beat the supermarkets on quality range and often price as well. In my own experience it is often the specialist independent retailer that is cheaper on like for like comparability. In the summer just gone, soft fruit like raspberries and strawberries were frequently half the price of those in the three supermarkets that I regularly use. But also while the supermarkets are good at stocking a good range of exotic fruits like mangos. And while the independents may not always have mangos in stock, the quality including taste as well as price is often of greater superiority.

I fully realise that some people do not have the choice and the supermarket is the only real option, but the independents need to be supported. If only to stop the march of the supermarkets. In places where there is little or no choice the supermarkets are not that cheap at all, and the range becomes even more restricted.

Locally I do have a good Greengrocer and a very good Butcher, all be it that I have to travel to them from my village. I also have three supermarkets that I can use, Asda, Morrisons and Tesco. So while I realise that I am lucky, it can sometimes mean that I have to plan carefully what foods or ingredients I need from the various suppliers. Additionally I can travel into Newcastle for other specialist shops, thus I have a world of ingredients and foods available to me.

While I can and will be critical of the supermarkets, as I would any business that failed to put their customer first, there are many aspects that we all should be grateful to the supermarkets for. But equally we should all support the good local retailers too. After all good cooking starts with good ingredients.

I also try and support the Farmers Markets when I can. The only difficulty is just that you are never sure what they will have. If you are planning a menu or meals for the week, this can make it difficult. However, by cooking from scratch and having the skills to be inspired by spotting something different can enable you to take advantage of what's fresh, in season and good value.

So I ask the readers here, where do you shop?