Supermarket price war predicted. This is being billed as good news for consumers, resulting in more choice and lower prices. But somehow I’m not so sure. The price war will result in yet greater pressures on suppliers (i.e. farmers and food processors) in order to reduce costs. The producers are already under great pressure to produce highly consistent food at very low costs, driven by the demands of consumers. I feel that increasing that pressure will only lead to more food scares like the one involving salmon we have just seen (although I’ve yet to be convinced of the merit of the claims in that case), and will also improve the odds for mass-produced subsidized food from western multinationals at the expense of food from smaller producers, be they in developing nations or in the next village.
6 Replies to “Price war victims”
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But it is the way of man to constantly push for more (for less!).
There is a cleverly worded piece somewhere in my head about the balance of nature and how we keep screwing it up, and how it’ll get its own back… but I’m too tired.. and you catch my drift..
burn the supermarkets eat the rich!
oooooops
burn the supermarkets just enough so that the pies are nicely cooked, then eat the pies!
mmmmmm pie!
That’s Globalisation and consumer demand for you, there will be no end to this apart from World Famine, disease and destruction.
Interestingly, I heard an article on the radio recently that said that buying FairTrade goods makes bugger-all difference because the processing takes place in the EU, and it is the processors that make the money, not the producers of the raw ingredients. This is because the tariffs on imported processed goods are much higher than on raw materials.
Of course, if processing moved abroad, countless thousands of people here would be out of a job.
BUY FROM YOUR LOCAL POST OFFICE ONLY!
CRISPS AND JIGSAWS YUMMY