SEVENTY YEARS OF SUPERMARKETS
Seventy years ago, Sainsbury’s opened its first self-service store. Supermarket shopping quickly swept the nation, changing our food habits. But convenience comes at a price, for supermarkets have transformed rural Britain, and not all for the better, arg
Joanna Blythman looks at how the shopping revolution that began in the 1970s has transformed our countryside.
The opening of Sainsbury’s first self-service store in suburban Croydon in London 70 years ago marked the genesis of a radical upheaval in how we shop for food. Thrilled with the apparent convenience of this modern supermarket system, many of us abandoned the local shopping habits of a lifetime, heading off to slick new stores.
In just a few years, the supermarkets came to dominate food shopping in the UK. Four big supermarket chains now provide two-thirds of the nation’s food. If we add in smaller chains, that figure becomes 94%. Although the dominance of these retailing giants is most apparent in urban conurbations
– all those big stores with generous car parks – powerful grocery multiples have also transformed our rural places in fundamental ways.
Now that we’ve reached roughly a lifetime of supermarkets in the UK, let’s take stock of what this shopping and food-supply-chain revolution has meant for our countryside and the lives of rural people.
FEWER MIXED FARMS
Small mixed farms, where farmers kept livestock and grew crops as part of one enterprise, fed the population of these isles for centuries. Mixed farms operated a virtuous biological loop. Manure built up soil fertility for crops, and the presence of animals contributed to a wildlife balance that attracted pollinators and kept pests in their place. They were self-sustaining – no need for farmers to rack up bills for imported fertilisers or pesticides. Britain was once dotted with these productive mixed farms serving their local communities.
By the 1990s, small farmers found their output was too insignificant to interest the powerful new grocers. These retailers sought large volumes of one product and had no loyalty to local farmers, pitting producers around the globe against one other, using their buying power to get the lowest price. As a result, small mixed farms are now quite rare. Fifteen years ago, there were nine times as many small farms as there are today, even though the UK’s population has grown.
MARKETLESS TOWNS
Historically, food commerce took place in ‘market towns’ with regular corn and fish auctions, butter and wool sales and the like. People shopped in these lively country hubs or even in their village, using clusters of independent shops and regional co-ops that sourced much of their food locally. Then supermarket chains wooed customers to their big-box stores situated in areas of population density, or on the edge of towns, sucking retail life out of once-bustling rural centres. For instance, in the early 1990s, when the supermarkets were still growing their retail power, we had 22,000 butchers’ shops in these isles. Now there are only about 6,000.
Country towns also held livestock markets. Many had abattoirs – the keystone of local food. In the 1930s,
England had 30,000 registered abattoirs. These gave farmers a direct route to customers and animals were slaughtered near the farm.
Supermarkets, in contrast, bypassed local livestock markets, basing all their meat sourcing and processing in a few very large cutting plants. Now England has fewer than 250 livestock markets. As local markets and abattoirs closed, livestock had to be driven longer distances to be slaughtered in large, supermarket-approved plants – not a win for animal welfare. In 2018, 32 abattoirs in England slaughtered 88% of all our sheep, and just 19 abattoirs slaughtered 73% of all our cattle.
LOSS OF DIVERSITY
Before supermarkets, British growers planted their fields and orchards with diverse varieties. Livestock farmers selected breeds that over the years had proven to be best adapted to their landscape. These fascinating differences enriched the nation’s
gastronomic choices and safeguarded our genetic food security.
However, supermarkets encourage uniformity by imposing strict cosmetic and technical specifications on their suppliers. For example, 6,000 different apple varieties can be grown in the UK, yet supermarkets rarely sell more than nine varieties, and this genetic erosion applies to all the fruit and vegetables supermarkets sell. Growers learn that if they plant ‘heritage’ varieties, or go for traditional animal breeds, the natural variability they show makes them candidates for supermarket rejection. For instance, beef farmers who would like to rear Dexter cows – a small, hardy breed – will struggle to sell them to supermarkets because the cuts are deemed too small to meet specifications.
Supermarkets’ insistence on giving the customer ‘consistency’ has made growers reluctant to produce anything other than the genetically homogenous number of commercial cultivars and breeds that supermarkets will sell.
PRICE PRESSURE
It’s the job of supermarket buyers to drive the toughest deals with their suppliers. This relentless downwards pressure on price makes it hard for farmers to keep going. Dairy farms are a graphic example. Thanks largely to supermarkets, the number of dairy farms nosedived by 66% between 1995 and 2019, and it’s the traditional farms, where cows were out on grass half the year, that have gone out of business.
The average yield of the British dairy cow has shot up by 94% since 1975. Why? To meet the low price that supermarkets demand, farmers have ‘intensified’, keeping more cows inside in high-tech units, where they are fed on concentrates to increase the volume of milk the herd produces. Sometimes these cows never go out to graze.
This intensive production often comes at the expense of animal welfare – stressed, hard-pressed cows – and creates problems for the local environment: noxious fumes and problematic quantities of slurry.
LANDSCAPES TRANSFORMED
Supermarkets’ perpetual quest for scale has changed the face of many farming areas. For instance, in parts of Lincolnshire – a shire celebrated for its rich soil and horticultural prowess – you can’t miss the supermarket influence. Fields look particularly linear, even and monocultural, with scant hedgerows and limited wildlife. The landscape is dominated by giant packing sheds, distribution depots and 24-hour factories. Juggernauts thunder by, transporting food for many miles.
In other areas – parts of Lancashire, for instance – where once there were green fields, anonymous industrial estates now house massive warehouse units that exist to serve our supermarkets. There, third-party companies – typically working for a couple of large retailers – process foods such as washed salads and cut fruit, and manufacture products such as ready meals, shipping them to mammoth distribution centres for onward delivery to stores. This sprawl
has sprung up to service the supermarkets’ centralised buying and distribution systems.
LINKS TO THE LAND
The loss of small farms, market gardens and locally based retail activity that is associated with supermarkets has fundamentally changed the way many country dwellers relate to their local area. Before supermarkets, rural people overwhelmingly worked, shopped and socialised locally, actively participating in their communities. Now the loss of economic activity driven by supermarkets means that some locals can’t find work, or afford to live there. Instead these places attract second-home owners and affluent commuters who, despite their rural postcodes, often have no local connection.
In some more remote areas, the drift of younger families to urban areas with better employment has made local schools and GP services unviable. The demographic has been skewed away from working families to comfortably off retirees and tourists. Once-dynamic towns and villages, although pretty and well-kept, offer precious little that makes people want to stay in them.
FROM FIELD TO OFFICE
Since supermarkets got a grip on food retailing, farmers have faced a stark choice: abandon your farm or invest heavily to attract supermarket business. The giant retailers expect their suppliers to pump money into the trading relationship. They might insist that farmers install a shrink-wrapping machine, or buy supplies of new packaging. They require farmers to sign up to numerous certification schemes, which involve heaps of paperwork and have significant fees attached. Farmers are also expected to pay large sums to supermarkets to get their produce on shelves, and fund in-store promotions.
In July this year, the Tenant Farmers Association complained that supermarkets were “fixated” with driving down prices to “unsustainable levels”, after Tesco gave its suppliers one week to agree to giving it 50% discounts. Supermarkets’ massive buying power heaps financial pressure on farmers, even though they get no guarantee in return that these retailers will continue to do business with them. Farmers find themselves tied up with administration largely to service the supermarket relationship.
DEEP, WIDE-RANGING CHANGE
For many rural people, supermarkets are a boon – they can’t imagine organising their lives without them. Others are hungry for change. Wherever you stand in this retail debate, there’s something that needs to be acknowledged. The supermarket era changed our lives in deep, wide-ranging ways.