Fresh! Local! Sustainable! Risible!
Daily Mail columnist John Carvel goes gaga over Hampshire, an English countryside village he claims is
well on the way to becoming the first in England to defy the power of the supermarkets by achieving communal self-sufficiency in food.
[...]
Nick Snelgar, who earns a living from growing herbs and shrubs near his home in Martin… organised a meeting in the village social club in 2003, and from it came the nucleus of enthusiasts who have organised the producer co-operative that is now feeding most of Martin’s residents.
What does the village’s self-sufficiency look like? Funny but it’s not a very self-sufficient self-sufficiency.
First, only “60% of the households in Martin use the co-op to supply at least some of their food.” (emphasis mine) 60% of people occasionally buying some items at a particular place is more a norm than a revolution.
Second, 126 of the village’s 164 households have paid five quid to join the co-op. That’s a pretty high percentage (76%), true, but it shows that even by a conservative estimate, 40% of the village’s households, and 21% of the co-op’s own members, don’t even shop there at all.
Third, and to Sneglar’s credit, even the co-op auteur doesn’t see the sense in getting rid of supermarkets.
I don’t want to kill off supermarkets. They should continue to do what they do best: provide toilet rolls and manufactured products that do not deteriorate when transported.
Like canned foods. And Triscuits. And frozen fish. You know, foods the supermarket carries.
