The Rise of the Budget Supermarket (The Argus 20/03/09)

Don’t Buy Budget, Buy Local – it’s never been cheaper

It’s a tough time for all shopkeepers at the moment, but particularly for independent retailers on shopping streets across Brighton & Hove.

As a passionate supported of small local food businesses, my heart sinks with every new headline about the rising popularity of budget food stores and the increase in sales of fast food and cheap takeaways.

I certainly think budget food shops have their place – after all we can’t buy everything we need locally – but these kind of news items only tell one side of the story. The truth is that fresh, local food has never been cheaper or easier to get hold of and can give even the cheapest supermarkets a run for their money.

So how can local food shops compete with giant retailers who buy in bulk and pile it high?
The answer is because they are able to cut out layers of middle men and deal direct with farmers and small producers who are just a few miles outside the city. Even more importantly, local fruit and vegetables which are in season tend to be cheap because there are a lot of them about – a glut which farmers are happy to sell at lower prices. Add to that the low transport costs and the strong euro and the local food option will nearly always be cheaper than the supermarket alternative.

You don’t have to take my word for this. Every week I visit a couple of the larger supermarket retailers and price up a basket full of veggies for comparison, and locally grown produce, picked on the morning it’s delivered, is at least 10% cheaper week after week….as are eggs, milk & bread. Staple local foods, carefully and responsibly produced, are affordable for everyone.

More importantly, every pound you spend with a retailer who sells local food, stays in the local community. With over 20 farmers and small producers on our books alone, we know that money spent on local food doesn’t just benefit the retailer but also helps safeguard jobs and local food traditions across the county. Where does a pound spent at Aldi go? Certainly some will go to pay the wages of local people who work there, which is undoubtedly a good thing, but the rest has been used to purchase products from other countries and any profits go straight into the pockets of the German parent company of Aldi, Albrecht Discount, whose owners Karl & Theo Albrecht are the richest men in Germany.

And what do the wealthy Albrecht brothers give back to Brighton & Hove? Very little compared with the farmers of Sussex whose daily work maintains the beautiful South Downs which surround Brighton & Hove. They graze livestock, protect wildlife and care for the patchwork of fields and hedgerows which makes Brighton & Hove such a great place to live.

Our farmers and small shops need you and your business, not the Albrecht brothers whose only interest is in the bottom line. Now get shopping.