Rant Local or British Food

[Darthshearer]

I went shopping on Sunday for some food. I went round the produce dept of a Supermarket and I was pretty much disgusted how we cannot buy produce that can be grown here in the UK.

Bloody potatoes coming from Zimbabwa, they cant even feed their own! Peppers from Argentina etc etc. Now, I think its a double edge sword also. I didnt buy as I went to the local farm shop and bought from their. This keeping the local farm shop going and the UK farmers going. BUT as I didnt buy the stuff from Africa, its putting them out of a job?

It still boils my piss tho! Sort it out you Supermarket w@nkers! Food miles, carbon footprint bollocks etc

 

[taB]

Good job on the farm shop there!

I will always buy local if possible and don't mind spending a bit more to do so.

Sorry Danes, you can keep your bacon.

 

[DaGaffer]

Someone's a grumpy gus this morning

You've managed to cover globalisation, the environment and consumerism in one paragraph. Well done you!

Seriously though; so long as people insist on cheap and out of season produce, the supermarkets will supply them. The weird thing is that its still economic to fly say, peppers from Argentina, when fuel costs have never been higher; the reason of course is that air traffic isn't taxed at anything like the levels of other forms of transport, so the distribution process is skewed. You can bet that if aviation fuel was taxed at the same levels as everything else, you'd suddenly find your peppers arriving from much closer to home (of course the supermarkets are one of the lobbies keeping the tax off aviation fuel). And you're right, this wouldn't be good for developing world farmers; but that's the joy of living in a global economy.

 

[throdgrain]

I go to a farm shop for our stuff as a rule, or I shoot my own sometimes

 

[Trem]

This country is too dear.

The supermarkets will always buy the cheapest to pass on the saving (sometimes) to the consumer and thus staying competitive.

Don't blame the players (supermarkets), blame the game (government).

 

[DaGaffer]

This country is too dear.

The supermarkets will always buy the cheapest to pass on the saving (sometimes) to the consumer and thus staying competitive.

Don't blame the players (supermarkets), blame the game (government).

The Supermarkets are hardly innocent; remember all the times they've been pulled up for price fixing (particularly dairy etc.), and that's only the UK/EU stuff. In non-EU countries its not difficult to imagine what goes on between the supermarkets, their producers, and each other.

 

[Trem]

Oh god aye, I wasn't sticking up for them was just saying that if they could get their food from this country for the same price or cheaper they would.

Every big company is as dodgy as sin in every country of the world.

 

[Chilly]

its a market economy - what else do you expect? If you want to be able to buy cheap shoes dont expect to be able to buy local food.

 

[Draylor]

Zzzzzzzz, another Daily Mail reader whine.

 

[Darthshearer]

Zzzzzzzz, another Daily Mail reader whine.

Not at all. I cant stand the Mail.

I pisses me off that the farmers and other industries in this country are struggling when there is no need at all.

Yes, at the moment there appears to be an upturn in the farmers fortunes with the land prices going up, but, thats not helping their pockets still.

 

[Mabs]

I or I shoot my own sometimes

those in-season veg can be right ornary

 

[TdC]

I pisses me off that the farmers and other industries in this country are struggling when there is no need at all.

what? our farmers get PAID to NOT PRODUCE!

 

[Darthshearer]

For the last 5 or so years 3 dairy farmers have been going out of business in this country!

 

[Sharma]

Any moment now, we'll have the liberal morally correct wankers jumping on Darth for not buying fair trade!

OH NOEZ!

 

[Will]

What? Most liberal, morally correct wankers like myself are very much in favour of locally sourced produce.

 

[TdC]

yeah, I purposely feed Will mass produced stuffs from global companies just to piss him off! also he was demanding out of season mussels so I am importing them from slave labour mussel farms in Liberia!

 

[Darthshearer]

yeah, I purposely feed Will mass produced stuffs from global companies just to piss him off! also he was demanding out of season mussels so I am importing them from slave labour mussel farms in Liberia!

Hehe

 

[TdC]

I forgot to mention they're far cheaper than local mussels too!

 

[old.Tohtori]

Mmm. Cheap Liberian hairy mussel!

 

[TdC]

don't Liberian ladies wax? o0

 

[Darthshearer]

Ewwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww

 

[old.Tohtori]

don't Liberian ladies wax? o0

Nothing wrong with a hairy muff

Hairy girls don't complain that much!

 

[Dr Medusa]

I'm entirely in favour of buying stuff from other countries that we cant grow here, and paying the farmers there a decent wage to do it. But I really dont see the point in them growing stuff we can get here. The environment may well be less suited to it and the only reason we get it cheap is because they pay them a pittance. Plus develping countries will be the first to suffer when the climate goes to hell in a handbag. So lets pay them properly to grow the stuff they're best at and we grow what we're best at.

 

[TdC]

we grow what we're best at.

Holland would export Weed, cheese and Tulips!

 

[old.Tohtori]

Holland would export Weed, cheese and Tulips!

Weedcheese?

 

[TdC]

tasty! better than cheeseweed!

 

[Sharma]

Cheese weed rocks - would have had some there but I think my head would have came off.

 

[DaGaffer]

I'm entirely in favour of buying stuff from other countries that we cant grow here, and paying the farmers there a decent wage to do it. But I really dont see the point in them growing stuff we can get here. The environment may well be less suited to it and the only reason we get it cheap is because they pay them a pittance. Plus develping countries will be the first to suffer when the climate goes to hell in a handbag. So lets pay them properly to grow the stuff they're best at and we grow what we're best at.

A lot of the imported stuff is sold because local equivalents are out of season; the supermarkets pay foreign growers a pittance by our standards, but not neccessarily a pittance by theirs (I visted a coffee plantation in Costa Rica last year and the guy doing the tour reckoned European supermarkets were by far their best paying customers), but that's not the supermarkets' motivation; consumers want strawberries in December or spring onions in august and as long as the supermarkets can make margin on that, they'll fulfill that "need".

I just can't see us going back to locally produced food unless it became massively expensive to import; and if that happens, getting pineapples in November will be the least of our worries.

 

[Billargh]

Weedcheese?

It would come in the shape of a clog!

 

[GReaper]

Supermarkets should be putting more emphasis into promoting local food instead of trying to satisfy every consumer. I'm not saying they should get rid of the option for those people who want something out of season, but just promote locally grown things a bit better.

Have some huge signs near locally grown stuff to promote where it comes from, put the imported foods in a different area to make it a bit more obvious.