Would like to know which supermarkets are de-listing Russian goods

Thanks everyone.
I heard yesterday that McDonald's intend to stay in Russia.
Another reason to be less than enthusiastic about that particular company I feel...

karmalady

Thanks for that info Suedonim

I wrote to lands end about them not putting country of manufacture on their labels. Told them I would no longer buy from them as I am assuming their items are made in china. They did say they will be forwarding my message to the powers that be

I did exactly the same! I phoned their customer help line to ask about this, and had a very nice conversation with a staff member who understood my concerns, my inability to make decisions as the information wasn't always provided. She said she would pass this on and that they had a lot of similar queries. This was to do with China, and their slavery of the Uighar muslims, not to do with Russia.

Thanks for that info Suedonim

I wrote to lands end about them not putting country of manufacture on their labels. Told them I would no longer buy from them as I am assuming their items are made in china. They did say they will be forwarding my message to the powers that be

karmalady

Is marks and spencer still trading in russia?

I gather from the news that M&S in Russia is run as a franchise so they can’t close it down. However, they’ve said they won’t be resupplying Russia once they’ve sold their stock.

Although Russia is associated with Vodka its is produced in many countries, One well known brand Smirn### is actually produced in the UK and is exported to Russia (or was) the brand is owned by Diageo.

Other well known companies operate in Russia, McDonalds, Subway, Starbucks, Burgerking, BP and many others I’m sure.

I agree Gill. You can only avoid items that state they are made or packed in a particular country.

from the BBC news about Tesco:

It has not yet confirmed whether or not it will remove Russian-sourced products, but has said previously it is following UK government rules on trading with the country.

It is very difficult to avoid buying anything from a country you don't wish to support as it is nigh on impossible to know where raw ingredients came from. We may for example buy a loaf in our local coop, marked as baked in the UK but we don't know where the wheat for the flour was grown.

That’s very disappointing. Surprised they haven’t taken any action.

Tesco haven't emptied their shelves. I don't drink vodka but made a point of looking. Shelves full of russian vodka, there was even a vodka called "Russian Vodka". Don't know about other products, but think vodka is the one everyone knows about.

Just read that in Watford the council tried to close the allotment by the football ground to build apartments. They were taken to court and lost. Hope this stops other councils thinking about doing the same. That allotment was over a hundred years old and over looked the football ground so if the council had won it how much would they have made out of that!

This month's BBC History magazine has an article about how Britain had to try to become self sufficient during WW2.

Every square inch of land was given over to growing food. Women were conscripted into the land army and little children worked on allotments. There were pig clubs. I guess you can use your imagination to fill in what they did.

I'm sure yields and methods have advanced a lot since then but any idea that we can be self sufficient in food must be wrong, surely?

I want to add about natural manure. I have a small patch of comfrey bocking 14, it is better than any animal manure. I had a patch for 10 years on my allotment, this bocking 14 does not seed so is perfect for a small space in a garden. My patch on the allotment never spread in all that time. You have to get root cuttings (ebay) or just portions from the ground. I brought some portions here and now I have a thriving patch. You can cut right down three times a year. I use it in my 3 small hotbins, as essential to me as buying furniture when I moved. It means that I can make beautiful compost very quickly

The bumble bees go mad for the lovely flowers, so I always leave some flowers for them. It heats a compost heap up very fast and I also make a liquid fertiliser, just leaves squashed into a net bag in water, with a lid. Bocking 14 will survive and feed the land. Do be careful to be sure that it is planted where you want it to remain. The roots go very deep, hence the goodness in this wonderful plant

I am an omnivore, don`t eat meat more than once a week but what I eat is grass fed and organic. The days of cattle gently roaming and manuring small fields in the uk are over, hence farmers have been using chemical fertilisers but they do not put the goodness into the soil that the worms can break down. Soil structure is often very poor nowadays because of intensive farming and soil is often `dead` as told to me by the local arable farmer. We can certainly do our bit as individuals and it all adds up

I know that this is a thread about food, in the main, but this is just a bit of a divergence...

It was mentioned up thread that we could become less dependent on Russian gas etc if we used more nuclear power. How can anybody think that is an option after what happened at Zaporizhzhia?

lemsip

I am surprised to learn on gransnet that Holland and Barrett is owned by a russian! I won't shop there again
a thread yesterday..
Holland and Barrett owned by Russian Oligarch

Have a look upthread Lemsip - it's actually owned by L1 which is a bit like, say, Arcadia. I think the oligarch/oligarchs were on the board and had shares but don't know how many.

I am surprised to learn on gransnet that Holland and Barrett is owned by a russian! I won't shop there again
a thread yesterday..
Holland and Barrett owned by Russian Oligarch

M0nica

Hetty58 between going vegan and not eating wheat. our diet will be very limited and boring.

Far more can be done by simply reducing our consumption of meat and ensuring that the cattle we breed live only on grass and hay. Soya, wheat and maize are not natural foods for cattle and are the main reason they they emit so much methane. James Rebank has pointed out that it is possible that cattle raised under a Pasture for Life initiative could actually be carbon neutral.

In theory the reverse should be true, methane is produced by bacteria that are needed to digest the cellulose in grass and other forage diets, there is no reason that less methane would be produced.

I have been unable to find any research that has been done on this, although our own Harper Adams University has it in progress. So I would be interested what your source is.

A bit off the topic but the raspberries we got in the uk in 2020 were easily the best we have ever had. The flavour was far superior to the ones we get here in Australia, maybe because of the cooler climate. Same applies to apples and tomatoes ( with the exception of home grown in the backyard of course !)

Is marks and spencer still trading in russia?

Germanshepherdsmum

JL and therefore Waitrose are removing Russian goods from sale.

Thank you.
This is what I was mainly interested in.

Hetty58 between going vegan and not eating wheat. our diet will be very limited and boring.

Far more can be done by simply reducing our consumption of meat and ensuring that the cattle we breed live only on grass and hay. Soya, wheat and maize are not natural foods for cattle and are the main reason they they emit so much methane. James Rebank has pointed out that it is possible that cattle raised under a Pasture for Life initiative could actually be carbon neutral.

We cannot currently grow enough food to support the population. And there is nothing remarkable about that. We have been importing wheat from Canada since the 1860s and the great farming slump that lasted from the 1870s to the start of WW2 was caused by the fact that our farmers could not compete on cost with prairie farmers elsewhere.

We still needed to import food during WW2 -and the population then was around 40-45 million, compared with 65-70 million now.

I am not sure whether the UK could be self sufficient, but if we were the diet, would be dull, limited. The medieval peasant subsisted on a diet of rye bread, pottage, a stew of beans, peas and onions, and probably kept a pig and occasionally added a fatty pork to their diet, plus foraging. Milk and dairy products were probably market products sold to the better off.

The industrial worker in the early 19th relied on bread for his main sustenance with cheese, occasional meat and amything they could raise on an allottment, if they had one.

Even allowing for the improvement in the range of cultivars and their higher cropping rates - and farming technology. Our diet would be very limited.

I very much doubt that this will affect anyone on this site, but Coca Cola are continuing to sell their goods in Russia. Time to sanction them, although it should be no hardship.
-disgusting stuff.

Shelves!!

Tesco still had Russian vodka on it shows this afternoon