On Supermarkets (Why Tesco must die)

Something I've been trying to achieve in recent weeks is to not depend on supermarkets for food. In Preston this has gone rather well, thanks to the market and the independent health food shop, I have been able to source everything I normally buy from elsewhere with the sole exception of soya milk. Recently I read Tescopoly by Andrew Simms, which served as a major inspiration.

I thought it was about time to sum up the main lessons I took from this book. What follows is an account of the damage done by supermarkets in this country, it is not an exhaustive list and steers clear of abuses committed and damage done overseas, as this is a topic much covered elsewhere.

1. Supermarket pharmacies Vs. Community and NHS pharmacies.

In the last few years supermarkets have begun to offer in-store pharmacy services, placing them in direct competition with Community and NHS pharmacies. The problem here is that, whereas supermarkets are only interested in the profit from prescriptions, other pharmacies make around 80% of of their overall incomes from prescriptions, this in turn allows these pharmacies to remain trading and to provide more important and less profitable services i.e. emergency contraception, methadone and in some places home visits to patients.

In situations where anything in seriously wrong with a customer/patient supermarket pharmacies will always refer that person to the NHS. Hence supermarket pharmacies depend on the NHS at the same time as stripping it of a major source of income by way of entering the prescriptions market. It can be seen here that supermarkets only target the high-profit and low-risk areas of healthcare.

As far as supermarkets are concerned, products will always come before services and there will be no consideration on their part for broader socio-economic impacts of their actions. For example if local pharmacies were to go out of business - something supermarkets have been known to pursue actively and irresponsibly - for example, Tesco has previously been in trouble with legislators for offering 2 for 1 deals on painkillers.

The danger is that in the near future there may be areas where the only pharmacy is a supermarket one and as such only offers a fraction of the services that an NHS/community pharmacy would provide.

2. Supermarkets and the (loss of the) Free Press.

In supermarket sales terminology there is a thing known as the 80/20 rule, explaining that supermarkets make 80% of their profits from just 20% of what they stock. For example by selling large quantities of popular titles and mainstream newspapers, whilst just selling a few copies of more niche and specialist publications. As with healthcare, local newsagents and booksellers can use the money they make from high turnover titles to continue trading and provide specialist titles for those who want them. The danger is that supermarkets will put independent sellers out of business and become the sole supplier of published materials to an area. Once the market is monopolised in this way, supermarkets can control which titles are stocked and by definition, which ideas are disseminated.

3. Where money ends up.

If people buy groceries in chainstores and supermarkets, then that money will leave the local vicinity and all that will remain will be the pittance of a wage payed to locally sourced staff. If the alternative occurs and people spend money in locally owned businesses then that money stays in the vicinity and will most likely be re-invested into the community. This has been proved to be effective and some urban areas in the UK use their own to ensure that money cannot be removed from the area.

4. Monoculturing Vs. Household Farming.

This is something more prevalent abroad but does occur domestically. In order to make agriculture supermarket friendly, farmers are encouraged to specialise in single crops and to give up small household farms, intended for growing a variety of crops for their own families, in order to become tenant farmers on these single crop plantations. First this is a massive undermining of the rights of the farmers and destroys their self-sufficiency. Second by replacing diverse eco-systems with the single crops, those crops become more susceptible to disease. Increasing the risks of crop failures and famine worldwide. More needs to be written on this topic but the environmental impact of this will be massive.