Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #22391 in Books
• Published on: 2005-02-07
• Binding: Paperback
• 400 pages

The Guardian
'Shocking and powerful'

The Times
'She'll fire you up with a righteous fervour that may last beyond your return to the mainland.'

Synopsis
An elegant demolition of the supermarket miracle, this book charts the impact that supermarkets have had on every aspect of our lives and culture. Did you know! / Almost 50% of supermarket fruit and vegetables contain pesticide residues? / UK supermarkets make 40p on every GBP1 spent on bananas while plantations workers are paid just 1p? / Supermarkets instill a climate of fear amongst their suppliers? / Every time a supermarket opens the local community loses on average 276 jobs? In the 1970s, British supermarkets had only 10% of the UK's grocery spend. Now they swallow up 80%, influencing how we shop, what we eat, how we spend our leisure time, how much rubbish we generate, even the very look of our physical environment. Award-winning food writer Joanna Blythman investigates the enormous impact that these big box retailers are having on our lives.

She meets the farmers who are selling food to supermarkets for less than they need to survive and the wholesalers who have been eliminated from the supply chain; she travels to suburban retail parks to meet the teenagers and part-timers who stack our shelves and reveals the hoops third world suppliers must jump through to earn supermarket contracts. This thought-provoking, witty and sometimes chilling voyage of discovery is sure to make you think twice before you enthusiastically reach for that supermarket trolley again. Contains new material on the 'Tesocisation' of Britain.

Customer Reviews

Frighteningly enlightening about a town near you
I was beginning to question whether the supermarkets were selling me what I wanted OR what they wanted to sell me. How many times have you gone looking for an item to find it discontinued and replaced by an own brand item? On this basis I was very receptive to the facts in this book.

Only a few pages in I was extremely disappointed in the authors knowledge of english geography, stating that Warminster was in Hampshire and Cirencester was in Wiltshire. Not a good start to a book that should be accurate in detail.

However the remainder was very enlightening and also frightening. It all begins to click with what we all have seen and experienced. This book has helped change the way this family is now shopping and will shop in the future. Supermarkets are changing the commercial viability of our towns, not for the better. This book is an essential read to all those who use supermarkets and will stop you believing that they are your wonderful friends.

More frightening than any Stephen King horror film
This is a superbly well researched and written book which exposes the dirty tricks that UK supermarket bullies employ.

I could not believe what they are allowed to get away with and how they can put our farmers and growers out of business with one phone call. Amazing that they actually expect fruit and veg to conform to their own colour chart and measurement table and if a supplier's fruit or veg was out by a couple of millimetres the whole consignment was rejected and sent back to the supplier who usually couldn't sell it on because it had been in the supermarket's warehouse too long.

As a result of reading this book I have destroyed all my supermarket loyalty cards, sourced two local farmshops and a farmers market where I will be buying all of my fruit and veg and cheese and I have persuaded my friends to do the same.

This book should be mandatory reading for anyone who has ever shopped in a supermarket. However in the long run it is down to us the consumer to vote with our feet and support our farmers in the UK before they disappear for ever.

Lovely idea for the fortunate few.
Indeed it would be lovely to ditch the supermarkets, especially the 'big four'. For most people who work and live outside London the reality is that the lovely independant food shops are only open during office hours. What supermarkets offer is long opening hours.