Are Supermarkets getting too GREEDY

[kazwencol]

HI, i just joined this site today and after reading about a topic on supermarkets, i decided to have my say on the subject. Everything has just got so expensive. that i have found it alot cheaper to shop in the asian shops. when you but say fruit from a supermarket it is always under ripe and eventually never ripens and then ends up in the bin. Which i hate as i do not like to waste food. The other day i went to a asian shop to get 2 lamb chops and 1 red pepper and ( wait for it ) the chops cost 66p and they had all the fat trimmed off also. the red pepper was 30p. I know that mums dont have much time on there hands but shopping around realy does pay off.Markets are much cheaper too than supermarkets. I think the supermarkets make a huge profit out of us....

We have so little choice - that is the problem we face. My town consists of Tesco, Co-op, Lidl and 3 butchers shops.

No markets, no fruit and veg shops and no asian shops.

I rely on Tesco (scamming bastards that they are) but the points pays for our holiday every year.

I buy a lot of my meat from the butchers but everything else is Tesco!

Yes Riven praps when Cameron talks about fairness he should think about the people who are unable to get to out of town supermkts.

Kazwencol I would love to join you with a petition to 10 Downing Street but they (the government) just don't seem to take the food problem seriously. They recently almost did away with the food standards agency which attempts to oversee things on our behalf and also agreed that the food manufacturers could regulate themselves in return for them putting money into a pot to finance advertisements for foods that are healthy to eat!! Self regulation - what a laugh!!

I do find that my local greengrocer and butcher are cheaper than the supermarket but I realize that this would not be the case in other areas.

a farmer decided to "add value" to his wheat, built a dog biscuit factory, employed more people, but was shocked when the supermarket demanded £20,000 per foot of shelf space (this was 20 years ago, do not know current asking price per foot)
Another farmer sent his salesman to meet the supermarket buyer, and put in an expenses claim for $5800, flight from California to Chicago, accomodation, and the farmer questioned these expenses- it appears you pay $5000 per half hour to talk to the buyer.
A promotion week on say cauliflower- here the grower receives far less than the cost of production, and we all know how you all like these promotions of 2 for 1 etc.
It goes on and on

Another evil dom of the dreaded sm's is buying land surrounding their stores so their rivals can't a build on it. Not content with putting local shops out of business they seek to establish local monopolies.

Is it one in every six pounds spent in britain that is now spent in tesco?

And don't even get me started on walmart/asda. Vile.

Of course supermarkets are too greedy. It's a business and that's capitalism for you.

WOW Guys,I was so cross that i sent Tesco a e-mail and you guessed it they came back with exactly what i thought they would say when i e-mailed them, that they are no different to any other supermarket. Im at a lost for words realy at what started as my first topic has started such a debate. Totally understand everybodys opinion on this and wish i knew how to knew how to start to get a petition going. There are alot of un-satisfied customers out there and i wonder if they even give a damn. thanks guys.KAZ

Blimey uk farmer why do any farmers bother with the SMs they could all open farm shops and tell the SMs where to go!!

Is there a farmer out there who could put us straight? I believe that twice fairly recently the powers that be have started enquiries into whether the supermarkets have a stranglehold over the farmers and food producers. Obviously carried out 'in house' and not by an independent body. Guess what - the result in both cases was? that the supermarkets were not taking advantage - the funny thing is that 'some of us know better!' Could a farmer please confirm this?

Kaz -I am with you on this and would dearly like to get something rolling such as a petition or campaign. I'll think long and hard about it, hoping that I get some sort of brainwave soon!!

I have recently started avoiding the supermarkets purely because they are too greedy.

I have started to have my milk delivered by a local dairy. I'm lucky to be not too far away from a farm which have their own butchers shop. I wouldn't call it a farm shop. They sell their own meat and eggs and sell a local Dairys milk, cheese etc.

I'm surprised to find that it's much cheaper. 6 organic fresh eggs for £1.50. 500g of fresh oranic mince beef for £3.74. I had always presumed that buying organic/farm shop etc would be more expensive but now I think that supermarkets rip you off and it's rubbish quality. You would never get this quality in a supermarket for these prices.

Hi kazwencol - I hope you are still around to see this. Are you still interested in setting up a petition of some sort. Have you any ideas? I was at a barbie yesterday eve. and someone suggested putting 'petition' into google. Amongst others, this site came up:

petitions.number10.gov.uk/about

It seems that if we can get more than 500
contributers it is passed on to No.10

What do you think? shall we give it a try?
Do you think it looks any good?

Fifechef, YES YES YES ! why not i would love to get something started. Sorry its taken me so long in the day to get back. I have to go out tonight so will have a look on here tomorrow and im sure between us we can get something going. I have no ideas at the moment so will rattle the old brain and see what i can come up with, Also have a very good friend who is very good at this sort of thing so will chat to him too, thanks and bye for now. KAZ

Kaz - we'll probably take a few days to sort out tactics. I've a friend coming tomorrow who might beable to help more with suggestions etc. Meanwhile I'm going to go through the internet a little more. Please keep in touch.
I think we have a hard task ahead of us because I don't think the majority of peole are too bothered about what they eat! I have also heard that the Women's I nstitute have been banging on about this for some while and I haven't seen anything about them getting anywhere with it yet.
What area do you live in? - I bet we don't live near to each other - it would make things easier if we did.

Count me in for a campaign I'm right there with you both !!!

good ppeatfruit!! Lovely to hear from you. We'll carry on with contact here for a while but I think eventually we'll have to give each other our emial addresses. If you can trust me - I have a business one that we might beable to use without giving our information away to the whole world!
Have you any ideas for our plan of attack?

Thankyou so much comrades, I live in west london so not sure if any of you live in london. Well maybe the Womans Instute havent had much reaction but i beleive the more people the better and we will have to make them listen. The problem with this is, its all very good and well that we are not happy with something but its the following through that makes the difference. I for one feel very strongly about this that im in it for the long all, so lets get going. take care and bye for now. KAZ

The info, fellow camaigners, at
tescopoly.org is rather interesting. Especially the bit about unhealthy food. Some of the info there might help us. I've checked up on the no.10 website but it seems that at present the new gov. is not up and running for petitions!

Realy, well i will check that out then. Another suggestion that has been put to me is to start a group up on facebook with a different account than i have normally have and see how that goes, What do you think ?

we dont have markets, and i find supermarkets cheap as chips.

i hate that they are, i know what they are doing, what they stand for and this is one of those things that i live with.

I think places like iceland are as cheap as chips but not the other well known supermarkets. When you compare prices to say 2 years ago and then compare how much they pay farmers and other food chains to what there profit margin is.

Computers, books etc for school...blair loved all this didnt he?...to believe that the more you spend the more yr local school will benefit, what small change for business making millions. Same with McDonalds, all bribing their way into controlling our little ones.

Yes Fifichef that was outcome that the supermarkets are not taking the p*ss! But Im not intellient to understand the politics of how much control the SMs have with central govenment. I have met lots of suppliers to supermarkets and there are so many underhand ways they get treated. Buy one get one free isnt paid for by the sm it tells the supplier that is what they want.

This 'A' class fruit & veg is totally unbeleivable too. Looks over taste. All those tasteless tomatoes, meat that has to conform to shape and size when alive to be able to fit perfectly into the containers.

Luckily we were never tied into a contract with anyone. I see our neighbours and family living a very humble life, working their guts out for less than min wage. We are lucky that we diversified and can live a decent life.

Sorry guys i keep forgetting to put your name on my replys, its not intentional but lack of sleep.Will check in with you guys tomorrow. TTFN kaz

Facebook idea is great kazwencol - as you can see, I've done my chores and can't wait to get started - like you I'm a determined bugger and would love to see some result from our efforts. I have emailed the no10 site to ask when we can post on it again. If this is not going to be possible we'll find another one. I know that this is putting the cart before the horse but we 3 'kazfippea'
could be thinking of any sites that we could put our link on. I'm also on netmums so that's another one to work on. Also, what might help is if we can think of somebody well known to front up our campaign - have any of you got contacts with the famous!!?
Be back - bye for now
By the way I live on the Dorset/Hampshire border, so am not too far away.

P.S. Try too keep this running as we're still getting more support and perhaps we can announce our link here.
By the way, ppeafruit - where (roughly) do you live?

HI Fifichef, I do not know anyone famous but i do have a local MP living in my street but not sure an Mp would help us. Waiting to talk to my friend who is great at this sort of thing but he has been away and is back today. There are also alot of websites about setting up a petition. That I have had a look at too. TTFN Kaz