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    Unavailable
    Shopped: The Shocking Power of British Supermarkets
    Unavailable
    Shopped: The Shocking Power of British Supermarkets
    Unavailable
    Shopped: The Shocking Power of British Supermarkets
    Ebook499 pages6 hours

    Shopped: The Shocking Power of British Supermarkets

    By Joanna Blythman

    3.5/5

    ()

    Unavailable in your country

    Unavailable in your country

    About this ebook

    An elegant demolition of the supermarket miracle, this book charts the impact that supermarkets have had on every aspect of our lives and culture.

    Did you know…

    • Almost 50% of supermarket fruit and vegetables contain pesticide residues?
    • UK supermarkets make 40p on every £1 spent on bananas while plantations workers are paid just 1p?
    • Supermarkets instill a climate of fear amongst their suppliers?
    • Every time a supermarket opens the local community loses on average 276 jobs?

    In the 1970s, British supermarkets had only 10% of the UK's grocery spend. Now they swallow up 80%, influencing how we shop, what we eat, how we spend our leisure time, how much rubbish we generate, even the very look of our physical environment.

    Award-winning food writer Joanna Blythman investigates the enormous impact that these big box retailers are having on our lives. She meets the farmers who are selling food to supermarkets for less than they need to survive and the wholesalers who have been eliminated from the supply chain; she travels to suburban retail parks to meet the teenagers and part-timers who stack our shelves and reveals the hoops third world suppliers must jump through to earn supermarket contracts.

    This thought-provoking, witty and sometimes chilling voyage of discovery is sure to make you think twice before you enthusiastically reach for that supermarket trolley again.

    Contains new material on the ‘Tesocisation’ of Britain.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherHarperCollins UK
    Release dateOct 11, 2012
    ISBN9780007388837
    Unavailable
    Shopped: The Shocking Power of British Supermarkets
    Author

    Joanna Blythman

    Joanna Blythman is Britain's leading investigative food journalist. She has won four Glenfiddich awards for her writing, a Caroline Walker Media Award for 'Improving the Nation's Health by Means of Good Food', and a Guild of Food Writers Award for The Food We Eat. In 2004, she won the prestigious Derek Cooper Award, one of BBC Radio 4's Food and Farming Awards. She writes and broadcasts frequently on food issues.

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    Reviews for Shopped

    3.5/5

    42 ratings4 reviews

    What did you think?

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    Review must be at least 10 words

    • 5/5
      Read it.
    • 3/5
      It may be because I try to stay up to date with consumer matters, but to me Shopped seems like old news. Yes, it's 4 years old, but the path it's travelled has been travelled well by other works before and since.I admit it covered areas that were new to me, but they were few and far between. I hadn't realised that producers were expected to fund offers on their products - I thought that supermarkets put on offers when they had too much of a bad thing. I knew the supermarkets put a lot of pressure on their producers, but didn't realise so much of it was financial.If you're suprised by the news that people dislike supermarkets for numerous reasons, this would be a good introduction. Otherwise, it's a bit past it's read-by date.
    • 5/5
      'Shopped' takes the reader on a lively, thought-provoking and incredibly interesting journey through the world of the modern British supermarket, revealing every secret trick and behind-the-scenes truths that they really wouldn't want the public to think about. From screwed-over suppliers to exhausted assistants, corner-cutting to own-label quality, obsessive perfection to global domination; it's all here in candid detail. I work as a shop assistant for one of the 'Big Four' and already, within a couple of months of employment, I can see the truth in some of the topics covered in Blythman's book. This book has affected me so much that I am determined to do as much of my shopping as possible elsewhere, even if that means taking the time to go further afield instead of choosing convenience. Already I have been inspired to frequent local markets and independent retailers instead, and am even considering leaving my job, such is my disgust at the underhand activities and money-greed that supermarkets shamelessly involve themselves in... After reading this book, why would I want to shop somewhere that has colour charts to determine whether a tomato is good enough to sell? Where checkout girls have to put up their hands to go to the loo like naughty school children? Where staff have no idea what their products are or what to do with them? That shamelessly hire and fire suppliers with no thought as to their livelihoods and the amount of work that goes into large-scale production for supermarkets?Read this book, be inspired and take the time to get out into your community and support local produce from knowledgable, friendly specialists. Vote with your feet and refuse to conform to the supermarket-driven one-stop-shop ideal where everything you need in your life comes from them in a neat once-a-week consumer package. This book is a sharp and well-written call to arms, and should be compulsory reading for everyone from teenagers to grandmothers.
    • 4/5
      An interesting look at the practices of the supermarkets in Britain, and you can see the echoes of these practices in Ireland. Looking at how some of their practices aren't giving us better produce but a homogenity that may look better but often doesn't taste better. She echoes my own concerns about people complaining that small shops are dying who do their regular shopping in big stores.