Are supermarkets controlling what we eat?

The local Farmfoods and Iceland are the go to places here, for they offer cheap and easy meals, which cost little to heat up in a microwave. Often people have little credit in their Pay as you go meters
With the cost of fuel going up, it's even more difficult now to "cook from scratch" for many.

Some posters have absolutely no idea, what it is to live in poverty
Absolutely right, Marydoll.

Tizliz

My main memory of shopping with my mother was her ability to add up the shopkeeper’s list upside down and point out their mistakes 🙄

Of course - mental arithmetic.
M0nica that is a very sad recollection, you may well be the poorer for that! How else do children learn than from observing and copying adults?

I've always been time poor, but always found a couple of minutes to peel a few veg
Arthritic hands can make that hard as we age.

I eat veg. I am not lying here inhaling donuts and sausage rolls

Just thinking I should have booked a pub lunch 😁
For what it will cost to pay for ingredients, fuel costs, not to mention all that peeling and chopping, we could go to a local pub for £10 for a roast dinner and pudding apparently!!

Galaxy

I eat veg. I am not lying here inhaling donuts and sausage rolls

Ooh, I could eat a doughnut ..... with jam 😁

My conclusion is that there is an abundance of choice here in the U.K.

It’s possible to get veg as it came from the fields, prepared ready to cook, frozen ready to zap in microwave along with tins.

All we have to do is persuade more folks to eat them.

I am not sure why I spelled donut in that way is that the American version?

I've noticed though if I pop to morrisons after work it is always bread and cake products that are reduced, so if I had the choice of buying a tray of doughnuts at 58p and a loaf for 28p or buying a cabbage for £1.47, I think I'd buy the tray of doughnuts and loaf

I have no idea what we are discussing anymore

It seems to me that there are two key elements to control over what we eat (or, if people prefer, who determines the food options we can choose from): control of supply, and market share of sales.

The ONS collates data on the latter. Supermarkets including Ocado have a 96.3% market share of grocery retail. If you exclude Ocado, the figure is still massive: 94.6%. The 4 largest supermarkets (which now includes Aldi for the first time) alone have 64.9% of the market.

Information on supply has proved trickier, so I’m relying on statistics quoted in 2014 to a DEFRA committee, and a written report by Jay Rayner to a 2017 parliamentary food security commission, which the NFU do not dispute, which claim that supermarkets control 95% of supply by volume.

Interestingly, the NFU has tweeted this morning pointing out the supermarkets are also controlling the narrative about the reasons for current shortages, and ignoring the role their own purchasing decisions have had.

Interestingly, the NFU has tweeted this morning pointing out the supermarkets are also controlling the narrative about the reasons for current shortages, and ignoring the role their own purchasing decisions have had

Yes 👏👏👏

Such a mix of reasons- not just the one. Problem is, if places like Waitrose, Sainsbury's etc, put up prices, but Aldi and Lidl don't, they will go to the wall. There has been a huge switch to those (German?) - that the others are already struggling to keep pace, with Asda and Morrison's, Coop, etc in between.

Tizliz, they've been doing it for years!

Interestingly, the NFU has tweeted this morning pointing out the supermarkets are also controlling the narrative about the reasons for current shortages, and ignoring the role their own purchasing decisions have had

So true

Katie59

It’s the price we pay for the convenience of supermarkets, you buy different, even cheaper, in local markets or farm shops, most of use don’t want the bother of several different shops,

That’s it Katie59
I like supermarkets, the big ones and also smaller ones too.
I still use farmers markets and independents when I can tho.
I don’t feel supermarkets are controlling me as I buy what I want to.

MawtheMerrier

^Interestingly, the NFU has tweeted this morning pointing out the supermarkets are also controlling the narrative about the reasons for current shortages, and ignoring the role their own purchasing decisions have had^

So true

I have a friend who does grow for supermarkets, he supplies M&S who have all the top quality and Aldi who have a less demanding specification.
It’s the customers choice, if you want perfect veg all exactly the same size go to M&S, if you’re happy with more variation go Aldi, they are all grown in the same field.

It’s not just the supermarkets who dictate what we eat! The latest fads in cookery programmes using (expensive) imported fruit/veg and other items which the supermarkets are encouraged and only too happy to stock, to our own food producers detriment, have some influence. There is also the current trend for ‘healthy’ vegan food (vegetarianism has been around forever, so is a bit old hat!). Often vegan foods are very highly processed, I note, but there are supermarket aisles full of it, limiting our choice yet more, while dictating to us the ‘moral high ground’. Perhaps all these cookery programmes, newspaper and magazine articles bear some of the responsibility too, not to mention the numerous pressure groups who are trying to force their way into the national consciousness

If you want people to use local shops you should campaign for free parking nearby. Too many places see the car as another source of revenue to the detriment of their local shops.

Nobody can control what we eat, but ourselves, and not everything has to be bought from what supermarkets offer.

I still love to shop in the market and support local butchers and green grocers, but when I my back is bad and I am struggling I do use the delivery from tesco, for basic stuff. I mostly cook from scratch, have a few things in the freezer that I have made for days I cant manage to cook and definitely want to choose my own fruit and vegetables as much as possible.If something is not available there is probably something else I can find. So tomatoes and peppers might be in short supply but have just made some coleslaw with cabbage, carrot and celery and a little onion. Goes well with various things and I enjoy the fresh stuff with not too much mayonnaise on it. Jacket potato with tuna and this coleslaw makes a very tasty and economic meal for me today.The media and the supermarkets make as much hullabaloo as possible in the hopes of making something into a drama and getting us to panic buy stuff. If they just put what was available for sale and just let us make our own decisions half this problem would not happen. They want to stir it up, well I have no intention of forking out extra money for things I can do without for a while. We do not have to have everything all the time

I am lucky enough to have a market near me so access to plenty of fruit and veg. I do a fortnightly shop at the supermarket and guess I am influenced so what by the two for one offers ur fish which I will put half in the freezer for another day.

A while ago I gave up processed foods as much as possible and also did a dry Feb so saved quite a bit moneywise. I also lost over a stone. Eating smaller portions helped and I saved money that way too. It is an effort to cook from scratch so I often cook more potatoes or stew than I need and save portions for later . I could not do without my freezer and microwave though.

The fact that a supermarket makes certain items of food available does not mean we have to either buy them or eat them.

Nor should we blame the supermarkets if we see the specific items of food on offer and are tempted to buy them. We are all old enough and ugly enough to have full free will to make decisions on what we eat and when and to walk right past that tempting food, if it would be foolish for us to indulge.

markets? local shops? what are they, here in Swindon,,, nuff said. the part I live in, has only a small Morrisons shop, hardly a supermarket, but so devoid of decent fresh food,, it is pitiful.. have a car? o.k. travel a few miles,, but even then local markets? local butcher over 10 miles away,, fresh vegetables?? I should be so lucky,, can`t even get British vegetables.

I've scanned through as many of the responses here as I can but can see no mention of another way I've seen that our largest supermarket is controlling what we eat. I first noticed when the Excellent Scottish Borders' rapeseed oil green design for their bottles was emulated by the supermarket. DH does the food shopping and does not read labels like a I do - throw back from the 70's - and kept buying the supermarket version by mistake. Scottish Borders now have a red design which is a less congruent with their message. Since then I have noticed other 'take overs' of a similar nature - in particular tomato sauce in a bottle that is almost identical to the one for the famous brand but I noticed the inferior taste for both products first before looking at the labels...... There have been a growing number of such 'take overs' since. I can't remember the most recent but it involved several different variations of a product with the supermarket label on packaging that was indistinguishable from the original..... I know many supermarkets have 'own brand' products but this is a whole other sneaky ballgame....

Good point Seadragon. Tesco butter looks like Kerrygold, there are lots of other examples and I also think they push their own brands in the choice you get on internet shopping. I think a lot of people don’t realise how little choice there is when you have your groceries delivered.