Not with a bang but with a kerching!

For various reasons I have recently been staying in the Lincolnshire town of Louth. In some ways Lincolnshire is about twenty years behind the rest of the UK.  It’s a rural county with no major cities but many, widely scattered market towns.  The main road and rail transport routes bypass the county entirely.

For these reasons Louth retains its character as a farming centre, rustic and unhurried. In 2012 the town was voted Britain’s Favourite Market Town by viewers of the BBC’s Countryfile, beating celebrated beauty spots including Ludlow, Perth and Stamford.  Markets are held in the town three days a week.  Many of the town’s buildings clearly show signs of their agricultural origins as wool merchants, seed dealers, maltings or the old corn exchange.  There is a working cattle market in the town and many of the town pubs have good rustic names: The Brown Cow, The Golden Fleece or The Miller’s Daughter.

The town centre is noted for the large number of independent retailers.  There are several family businesses including bakers, green grocers, a large number of butchers, and a specialist cheese shop. The lobby group, Keep Louth Special, attributes this to the absence of a major supermarket in the town.  There is a small branch of Morrisons and a similarly sized Co-Op, but the town is extremely unusual these days in not having a large supermarket either in the town or on an edge-of-town site.

That state of equilibrium is about to be challenged.  This week, East Lindsey District Council, which owns the cattle market, has announced its intention to close the existing facility and move to an out-of-town location.  They have invited sealed bids for the multi-acre site, and all of the big four food retailers have declared an interest in acquiring the property.

 Keep Louth Special, and many of the town’s existing traders are girding their loins for battle and preparing to fight any application to build a new supermarket.  They claim that a major supermarket in the town would be a disaster, forcing many local businesses to close and irreversibly altering the character of the town.

But not everyone feels the same way.  Many people would welcome a major retailer in the town.  They point out that most of the town’s residents already travel the 25km to Grimsby to do their main food shopping.  They want to see the same choice and low prices available closer to home.  The scene is set for a major planning battle.

My guess is the cattle market site will be sold and it will be bought by one of the big four supermarkets.  Money talks, and the funds raised will allow the council to keep council tax rises down.  In a couple of years there will be a supermarket on the site and most of the townsfolk will use it.  And what will be the impact on Louth’s  small retailers?

 I would like to believe that the changes will only be positive.  Perhaps the presence of a large supermarket will enhance the town as a retail destination.  Maybe there will be a win win and the local retailers will share in the increased size of the pie.  But I doubt it.

I fear that many small businesses will be tilted into deficit.  I suspect that several existing businesses will turn out to be surprisingly fragile and the arrival of a new major competitor will prove to be the difference between survival and closure.  They will be replaced by charity shops and discount stores and some will be boarded up for years.  Shoppers will actually see choice and service decline.  There will be a net loss of wealth to the town.  Research shows that a shockingly small percentage of money spent in a national supermarket stays within the local economy.  There will be a loss of vigour in the town centre.  Even the district council will notice the difference in receipts from business rates. It has already happened all over the county.

I am tempted to remember the words of Paul Weller.  “The public gets what the public wants.”  But I doubt if many people would actually choose the future that I have foretold.   The trouble s that most people will take a short term view.  They will look forward to lower prices, two-for-one offers and extra club card points. Probably it’s more accurate to say simply that as a society we get the towns we deserve!

Reflections on the (Possible) Revolution

On May 5^th the state of Karnataka held elections to vote in a new state government. It was quite a significant affair with many street closures in the month long run up to election day to allow political rallies. Posters, and political slogans daubed on walls sprang up everywhere.  Cars with loud speakers patrolled residential areas exhorting people to vote and at least one bomb exploded in Bangalore.  Even worse, for three days around the vote sales of alcohol were banned across the state!

 In the event, as widely tipped, the ruling BJP party was kicked out of office and Congress, the traditional ruling party in this part of India, resumed power.

Participation in Indian politics is relatively high in international terms.  Turnout in the World’s Biggest Democracy is usually around 60% and is generally higher for state elections than for the distant national Parliament.  Tip O’Neill coined the phrase that ‘all politics is local’.  Well that is never truer anywhere than it is in India.  People here vote with the expectation that the winning party will make good promises on delivering local infrastructure projects: roads, schools and water supply.

I met several people who were passionately involved and very partisan.  The irony is that so few of the people I mix with socially seemed to care.  It was easy to get drivers or waiters to discuss the forthcoming election, but the professional classes and the urban middle class genuinely seemed to have little interest or involvement.

The reason is that the rich in this country largely opt out of politics.  They pay for private education and medical care, employ private security firms to police their gated compounds, and remain largely indifferent to corruption and inefficiency in state offices.  Consequently they see no reason to pay tax. India has a shockingly low tax base.  In December, India’s finance minister, Palaniappan Chidambaram, announced that only about 36 million people filed income taxes last year. That’s 2.89 percent of the population. If it means that they have to drive their SUVs on rutted roads past piles of accumulated garbage and emaciated people dressed in rags sleeping on the verge, well so be it.

I do not profess any faith or religious beliefs.  But I think it is not a coincidence that Christianity teaches charity and responsibility for ones fellow man, and European politics pretty much across the continent boils down to various flavours of social democracy.  In the USA, where there is a tradition of philanthropic giving, they do it differently.  Hinduism by contrast is essentially fatalistic and focuses on personal behaviour and the self.  To my mind that attitude permeates much of Indian society and culture.

So what has any of this got to do with food or sustainability?  Those are after all the purported subjects of this blog.  Well yesterday, tucked away on the inside pages of the Times of India, I read a small article that said that the new Karnataka government was about to effect a change in policy to allow Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) in the state’s retail sector.  This is yet another step in the long march towards economic liberalisation begun in 1991.  However, many small producers and traders are deeply unhappy about the prospect of Karnataka’s retail industry being opened to foreign competition.

In the west the arguments for liberal economics are so dominant it seems strange to think that this could be such a contentious issue here.  So complete is our belief in free trade, deregulation, competition and the power of market forces that we forget that alternatives do exist.  Since the reforms were introduced foreign inwards investment in India has skyrocketed.  Annual GDP growth has accelerated from just 1¼ % in the three decades after Independence to today’s 7½ %.  The city where I am living, Bangalore, has become a global IT hub, and India sits proudly as a BRIC nation second only to China in the pace of economic development.

Yet, as elsewhere in the world, the fruits of economic development have not been shared equitably.  Rising prosperity has been accompanied by a massive growth in inequality.  There is a record number of super rich Indians but the lowest tiers of Indian society have been left behind.  The reforms have brought virtually no change in incomes or average consumption for people at the bottom of the pile.  Economic growth has not been translated into employment growth or a significant change in educational standards for the masses.  Basic nutrition remains a fundamental concern for millions of the poor.

I enjoy food shopping in Bangalore.  There are several small independent supermarkets where, by shopping around, I can buy pretty much everything I need.  They are not stylish and choice is limited. The expat telegraph buzzes with news that such and such a place has got a delivery of French Brie or Danish butter.  But most things are available if you know where to look.  Certainly it’s a lot better than China in that regard.

It is also quite chastening to take a stroll in to the local village, Nagenahalli, and see how the locals live.  I frequently visit a local green grocer.  At first, the presence of a white face caused some consternation, but now they are used to me.  For my part I have got over my fixation with perfectly formed vegetables and uniform, smooth skinned fruit.  Here you get produce just as nature creates it, in all shapes and sizes and with blemishes.  It doesn’t alter the taste one jot!   Potatoes, garlic, onions, chilies, capsicums, bitter gourd and okra are always available.  Cauliflowers, courgettes, aubergines, tomatoes, carrots and string beans are usually to be had.  After that? Well don’t hold your breath.  It’s not that other things aren’t available, but they come and go as they should.

Agricultural produce is locally grown and available when in season.  The mango season has just ended, but when they were available they were amazing.

Potentially FDI means that this time next year Nagenahalli could have a Wal-Mart, a Carrefour or a Tesco Express.  I will be able to push my trolley around in luxurious airconditioned aisles groaning with wondrous, foreign imported foods.  Perhaps this village will disappear under piles of superfluous packaging, local farmers will be driven out of business and my village shop will be demolished to make way for a hundred car parking lot.  Perhaps that’s progress.  No doubt there would be a tiny uptick in India’s GDP associated with the retail revolution in Nagenahalli.

Is it patronising and hypocritical of me to want to deny the pleasures of the first world to people here.  Why should they be denied the right to buy South African apples or Dutch lettuces?  And can anyone really hold back the tide of development anyway?

But here’s another irony.  The people who would benefit from a retail revolution are the same middle classes who eschewed the elections.  The poor people of Nagenahalli don’t want to buy taramasalata or Californian wines.  They don’t need loyalty cards or two-for-one offers on shampoo.  Most toiletries are sold here in single use sachets.  I bet, if anybody were to ask them, they just want jobs, a community and somewhere to sell their meager farm produce.  Now that would be worth voting for!

And Then There Was One...

As I said a few days ago, it’s nice to be current.  However sometimes you can be too damn current for your own good.  I think perhaps as a blogger I do better by waiting for the dust to settle and taking a more reflective look at events.  Yesterday provided just such a case in point.

In my latest blog I berated the supermarket giant Tesco for abandoning its long standing commitment to exclude chicken and egg products reared with GM soya.  I compared the company unfavourably with some of their competitors and reminded consumers that they do have a choice in where they shop.  The electrons were barely dry on the server before arch rivals Sainsbury’s and also Marks & Spencer and the Co-Op all announced that they would  be following Tesco’s lead and dropping that particular pledge.

Four major food retailers making almost identical policy statements on the same day. A coincidence?  You decide.  I am not a lawyer but don’t the 1998 Competition Act, and Articles 81 and 82 of the EC treaty have something or other to say about anti-competitive agreements between businesses?

ASDA, part of the gargantuan Walmart group, gave up on non-GM feed in 2010 and Morrison’s followed suit in 2012.

Fortunately you do still have a choice.  Waitrose is now the only (almost) national supermarket chain still committed to keeping GM-free eggs.  As I reported yesterday, Waitrose is also taking an extremely proactive approach to the pressing issue of neonic pesticides and bee mortality.  All this starts to chime positively with other snippets that I have picked up along the way.

A Suffolk pig farmer I know produces free range British pork exclusively for Waitrose.  He says the retailer takes the toughest possible stance on both animal welfare and on wider issues of environmental management.  Waitrose inspectors, he told me, regularly visit his property to measure field margins and map biodiversity in his hedgerows.

Waitrose has also been at the forefront of ensuring that all wet fish and fish products sold in their stores are sourced from sustainable fisheries.  Not only that, but they take pains to ensure that all fish can be securely traced from catch to counter, and they’ve done that for years, long before recent MSC concerns surfaced about accreditation.

Waitrose has a reputation for being upmarket and a bit expensive, but according to the company’s website their 1,000 basic branded grocery products are the same price as Tesco’s.  The only thing that’s exclusive about Waitrose is their commitment to environmental issues.

It’s not my place as a blogger to promote any particular retailer, but when one company does stand out from the pack they deserve to be recognized.  Surely it cannot be a coincidence that, as a part of the John Lewis Partnership, Waitrose is not your normal shareholder driven company.  This retailer is for me the truly acceptable face of capitalism.

In the interests of fairness I should point out that most, if not all, of the supermarkets named continue to sell ‘organic’ chicken and eggs, which do adhere to the Soil Association’s definition and therefore remain GM free.

Aisles of Plenty

No subject may be counted upon to get people worked up into a good righteous lather more than supermarkets.  Supermarkets have transformed our lives in the past forty years like few other modern institutions.  But to many people they are the epitome of evil.  Campaigners the length and breadth of the country fight to keep these commercial behemoths out of their communities.  They are charged with causing or enabling every kind of social and environmental problem we face.

Supermarkets, it is claimed, destroy our towns by using their scale to drive small businesses out of the market, leading to decimated high streets which then fill up with estate agents, betting shops and charity shops.  They damage our rural environment by using their buying power to squeeze producers to the point that they have to focus entirely on price without regard to the damage such practices may have on ecology. They add food miles to our daily grocery basket. They create an economic model where it profits unscrupulous producers to substitute horsemeat for the er… ‘prime beef’ people thought went in to their economy burgers. They manipulate world prices and bully third world countries.  They force shop workers to work nights and on weekends, breaking down age old religious and social traditions such as the day of rest.  They promote cheap alcohol sales which cause social problems, particularly among the young, and so on and on.

All of these claims have more than a grain of truth behind them, but despite the fact that nobody admits to liking them, we all shop in them.  Almost every family in Britain must hold a loyalty card for one or more of the big four chains.  (Big 4?  There’s another problem, they eliminate competition from the market!)

Of course they wouldn’t be popular if they weren’t doing something right.  There are flip sides to most of these arguments. Supermarkets have largely been responsible for the era of low food prices enjoyed by consumers for decades.  Like their advertisements say, they do scour the world for interesting and unusual products.  This alone has driven the food revolution in modern Britain transforming our national cuisine from a standing joke to a showcase of the world’s finest fare.  And many hard pressed consumers are glad to be able to do their shopping at night or on Sundays.  For one thing, I know from my own experience, it allows fathers to play a more complete part in family life.

The point is that supermarkets by themselves are neither good nor bad.  They do, as a function of their size, wield great power.  That power can be used for good or for ill, as I alluded to some weeks ago at the height of the horse meat scandal.

Today, my eye was caught by two stories which illustrate this point exactly.

First Tesco has announced that they will drop an eleven year old restriction on chickens and eggs from birds fed on GM soya.  They claim that it is simply becoming too hard to source non-GM chicken feed.  Equally significantly, they do not plan to label chickens or eggs as GM products.  The Soil Association dispute Tesco’s arguments about sourcing feed and say in effect that the supermarket is being pressured by big, multinational, industrial farm corporations.

I have avoided blogging about genetic modification because it’s a huge and complicated subject.  Frankly I don’t think we yet know all the facts.  Personally I am not particularly worried about eating GM produce, but I am concerned about the possible effects on wildlife and natural flora, and I don’t like the idea of farmers being locked in to particular agrochemicals suppliers.  Stories of Frankenstein foods don’t help, but then neither do real world examples of Monsanto trying to patent common fruit and vegetables.

Faced with such uncertainty my natural response is to rely upon the precautionary principle and do nothing irrevocable. GM foods exist.  Let them be properly labeled and allow the consumer to decide.  All the evidence shows that the public is not happy about eating GM produce.  By their actions Tesco is taking the decision and the choice away from the consumer.

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On a more positive note, Waitrose has today instituted a ban on neonicotinoid pesticides because of concerns over the harm done to bees, butterflies and other pollinators.  I blogged about these systemic insecticides three weeks ago, and how Germany and the UK, homes respectively to the two biggest manufacturers, Bayer and Syngenta, blocked EU wide restrictions on their use.

Under Waitrose’s Seven Point Plan for Pollinators, suppliers of fruit, vegetables, flowers and commodity crops such as oilseed rape have until the end of next year to stop using the three most popular neonicotinoids: imidacloprid, clothianidin and thiamethoxam.

In parallel with this ban, the supermarket will fund a three year research programme at the University of Exeter to establish the facts about these chemicals, which are naturally disputed by the manufacturers.

Perhaps like me you feel it should have been the chemicals companies themselves or even DEFRA which sponsored this research, but nevertheless I welcome Waitrose‘s unilateral action.

Examples such as these demonstrate how supermarkets can use their power in the interest of the consumers or against them in the narrow pursuit of profit at all costs.  They also remind us that there is always a choice, even if we have to drive a little further to get it.

* Morrisons and Asda had both previously dropped their own bans on GM feed.  Marks & Spencer, The Co-Op and Sainsbury’s  all followed Tesco's lead within hours of my writing this blog.