18th September 2006

Front page of The Citizen shouts "Superstore jobs boom" (9/08/06) re the new Brockworth Tesco, while days later a similar headline re Sainsbury's expansion in Barnwood (12/09/06). This completely misses the bigger picture.

Supermarkets destroy local jobs and erode local choice. A 1998 study by the National Retailer Planning Forum examining the employment impacts of 93 superstore openings found that they resulted in a net loss of 276 per store opened.

Between 1997 and 2002 more than 13,000 specialist stores closed as the supermarkets' share of the grocery market has increased to 88 per cent and continues to rise. The Competition Commission notes the loss of local, independent shops can have serious impacts in terms of access to food, particularly for people on lower incomes or those who don’t have use of a car.

Furthermore supermarkets have been shown to siphon money away from local communities and towards shareholders and distant corporations, increase traffic and congestion, lead to more waste and over-packaging while the supermarkets' market dominance exploits suppliers and farmers so that prices sometimes fall below the cost of production (i).

We urgently need our politicians to look beyond supermarkets glossy sales pitch to look at the facts. The growth of supermarkets does not benefit our communities in the long run and certainly increases the damage to our planet.

Bryan Meloy, Gloucester Green party


Notes:

(i) A study by the new economics foundation found that £1 spent in a local shop selling local produce puts twice as much money back into the local economy as £1 spent in a supermarket. An analysis of procurement spending conducted by Northumberland County Council with NEF has shown that £1 spent with local suppliers is worth £1.76 to the local economy, while £1 spent with suppliers out of the area is worth only £0.36. A Friends of the Earth study of local food schemes found that on average just over half of business turnover was returned to the local economy – compared to as little as five per cent for supermarkets. The distribution systems used by supermarkets and the location of out of town stores generate large amounts of traffic. Recent work for the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) suggests that car use for shopping results in costs to society of more than £3.5 billion per year, from traffic emissions, noise, accidents, congestion and accidents. Packaging now makes up nearly a quarter of household waste, and 35-40% of household waste ending up in landfill begins as a purchase from one of the 5 big supermarkets.