Oswestry21

A recent news article in the ‘Tizer reported that Sainsbury’s in Oswestry has started handing out free storage containers to customers to ‘help people do their bit to reduce the amount of food that goes to waste’.

      Laudable though this initiative may appear, it is somewhat ironic given the role that supermarkets play in creating food waste. Each year, up to 20 million tonnes of food are wasted in the UK, and most waste occurs before food even gets into our homes. British farmers are forced to waste millions of tonnes of fruit and veg before they even leave the farm, simply because the produce does not meet the strict cosmetic standards stipulated by supermarkets.

     Within homes, consumers bin around £12 billion of groceries each year, including nearly 100,000 tonnes of poultry meat. One major cause of food waste within homes is date-labelling, which confuses customers.

      Sell-by dates, which supermarkets use for stock control, have nothing to do with food safety.

      Best-before dates, which are supposedly for quality control purposes, are overused and often unnecessary; it’s obvious when fruit and veg, for example, are past their best.

     Even use-by dates are abused, as manufacturers set dates far in advance of when the food is likely to go off.

     Another source of food waste is supermarket bogof (buy one, get one free) offers or, even worse, buy three for the price of two, which encourage customers to buy far more fresh produce than they can realistically use before the excess starts to rot in the fridge or fruit bowl.  Consumers are essentially paying supermarkets for the privilege of throwing away excess supermarket stock, and thus saving the supermarkets the cost of doing so.

      Fortunately, shoppers in Oswestry can evade sell-by, best-before, bogof and other corporate chicanery by purchasing fresh produce from independent local food shops and market stalls, who will sell the exact amount you need – and offer free advice on what’s in season / the best cut of meat for a particular recipe, etc. 

This is on Monday night, 8th Feb. at 7 p.m. at The Walls.

Much to discuss inc. delivery of pre March 18th publicity drive & other related matters.

It will be a pro-active meeting. Apparently! 

Poor old supermarkets - they try and tell us that they can supply us with everything. But if you like your produce local, if you like your food fresh, if you like to make things yourself, if you shop for surprise and not out of habit, if you like old things, if you read books, if life is a sense of discovery, if you have imagination, if you like people and talking and if you just enjoy what life brings every different day, then supermarkets come nowhere.

As Leonard Cohen wrote, and sang “There’s a crack in everything - that’s how the light gets in”. If you like it hermetically sealed, stick to the supermarket. If you like the cracks and the light - use your market. They are and will be important places - social spaces, food hubs, centres of local identity, small business start up opportunities, focus of market town regeneration etc. If we lose sight of that, and there is no investment & interest in town centre independents & markets, then we lose the small things that matter and hand the whole production, retail and consumption game to a monopoly of supermarket majors.

All these images where taken on one day in Powis Hall market, Oswestry. It was an exceptionally bright, light and sunny day.

Bed time reading.

 Clone Town Britain. The New Economics Foundation survey results on the bland state of the nation. Results and recommendations well worth reading.

 http://www.neweconomics.org/

Friends of the Earth on line petition:

Use link on the bottom line.

 Growth at what price?

 The relentless growth of Tesco has crushed small businesses and local shops. And it has turned many of our communities into Tescotowns.

In response, the Competition Commission has recommended a new competition test for town planning.

This would stop supermarkets opening new stores in places where they already control the majority of the local market.

Bully boy tactics

But the new test is in danger because of the fierce lobbying of Tesco.

They want to scrap the test and risk the future of vibrant, environmentally-friendly communities and town centres.

What can I do?

Demand the Government stands up to Tesco.

Email the Minister for Planning

War on Want - Fight Supermarket Power Conference

For anyone who is interested and can make it to London on Sat 27th February, this could be a useful event. Let us know if you are going - it would maybe make transport issues easier, and Oswestry representation would be good, as would feedback. Thanks.

Details of next OS21 meeting posted under the relevant button above.