Environmental campaigners such as the great George Monbiot regularly tell us there are three things we should do to save the planet – “Don’t’ shop in supermarkets, don’t shop in supermarkets and don’t shop in supermarkets.” They’re right, of course. But in today’s western countries it’s a pretty tall order. Why? Because they are so convenient, have loads of choice and above all they are cheap (and getting cheaper).

We all love a bargain and so seeing attractive products in such abundance is hard to resist. But behind the cheery (now eco-friendly) façade supermarket companies are savagely capitalist and they are damaging predators. They exterminate competition and they squeeze their suppliers so hard that they can easily put small businesses out of action. I was talking to the wonderful people who run Beanies Health Foods the other day. They supply us at The Barn with Frys vegetarian products and B’Nice Ice Cream. They told me that the conditions they would have to meet to get their products into any major supermarket would simply bankrupt them. To get stocked in a national Health Food Shop chain (no names to protect the guilty) they had to send out £44,000 worth of goods to them for every one of their store managers to try. And even then it was a case of only ordering at the individual manager’s discretion.

Elsewhere to satisfy our desire for perfect vegetables the supermarkets pay the growers next to nothing then spend a lot of money making them look good. There was the case recently of Prince Charles’ organic carrots being rejected because they were too irregularly shaped. He blew the whistle on what they were doing. Before they stopped buying from him the supermarket in question would buy the carrots in Gloucester, then ship them to Peterborough for ‘polishing’(!!) then truck them back to a distribution centre in Bristol where they would be sent to shops in the area labelled ‘local produce’.

This entry could turn into a major thesis/rant so I must stop now. Maybe I’ll writer another piece about the environmental cost of supermarkets another time. But I’ll finish with a plea. I wouldn’t expect anyone to boycott supermarkets completely (I don’t) but do please try to reduce your reliance on them. If there’s a local greengrocer or independent health food shop then support them all you can otherwise they might not be there long. Do let me know your thoughts on this issue please…..thanks.