National supermarket chains are still not supporting the local economy – that was the message that came out of a survey of supermarkets carried out by local Liberal Democrats across South Shropshire over the last few weeks.
“I think that ‘tokenism’ can best describe the attitude of most supermarkets to local produce ” said Cllr Heather Kidd, Liberal Democrat Parliamentary Candidate, who organised the survey. “You have to work very hard in most of the national chains to find anything local at all. One (the Co-op) did at least stock a good range of fair trade products but it was only a locally based chain (Tuffins) which stocked a significant number of local products, especially in the meat and dairy sections. Given the number of small companies producing a whole range of quality food products locally this is scandalous”
The survey was based on visits to supermarkets in Ludlow (Somerfield, Tesco) Craven Arms (Tuffins), Church Stretton (Co-OP) Churchstoke (Tuffins) and Bridgnorth (Tesco, M&S and Sainsbury’s). It consisted of a simple count of all local products seen.
But not only are local food producers ignored but farmers who supply the supermarkets with the source products – meat, milk etc are also still being penalised.
Heather continued “In my area there are dairy farmers who are currently making a loss on what they produce after a slump in the price of milk (Not a reduction, incidentally, passed onto the consumer) They are currently existing on farm payments which would not be necessary if they received a decent price in the first place.”
“We currently see the sad irony of many shoppers buying fair trade coffee on one isle of a supermarket only to buy milk on the next isle from an exploited dairy farmer down the road!”
Heather is now writing to the Chief Executives of the big supermarket chains asking why their stock of local products is so miserably low. The responses should be interesting!