Divide and ‘conquer’ Coles and Woolies??
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September 2, 2007Maleny is getting it right…
September 5, 2007I went on a Shopping with a Conscience supermarket tour last Friday night and I do confess the complexity is ALMOST overwhelming. This is just what Supermarket Buying Guide and the campaign Your dollar is your vote – who did you vote for today? is tackling.
If we have any real power as individuals, it is as consumers
The supermarket is in many ways the front line in the fight for a better world says the Sustainable Living Foundation (SLF). Through our everyday shopping we make choices that have an impact on the environment and choices that send important and powerful signals to manufacturers and retailers.
How did ‘Shopping with a Conscience’ night run?
At 6pm sixteen of us met at the Footscray Baptist Church, across the road from a Coles supermarket – after getting lost in the many one way streets in a part of Melbourne I don’t know well, I saw a ‘Make Poverty History’ banner slung across a building and knew I had arrived!
Nick Ray from the SLF ran us through some of the ethical discussions, but started off saying it’s all about what we, the consumers, value, that our dollar is our vote and we should aim to buy better according to our values. We inspected many boxes Nick had there and soon realised how confusing the whole labelling system is. eg
- Made in Australia means the product is ‘assembled or put together here’ while Produce of Australia means the product IS made here.
- With fruit juice made from imported and Australian juice, whichever word goes first – ‘imported’ or ‘Australian’ – means this is the greatest amount in the final product.
- Anything can be legally labelled ‘organic’ but only ‘certified organic’ means something has been grown organically in the sense of ‘chemical free’.
The shopping
After our round circle discussion 6 groups were each given an item to go and buy after researching the product in a 24 page A5 Buying Guide. 20 minutes later we returned, explained what we had bought and why and proceeded to eat our supper – lucky someone had a Swiss army knife to cut the Brie! Our chat over supper finished up around 9.30 – a very good night.
Tackling the complexity
The SLF and the Ethical Consumer Group – two NonProfits collaborating on this project – say the ‘green’ minefield can easily be crossed by asking yourself four simple questions before buying:
- Do I really need this?
- What is it made of and how was it made?
- How many times can I use it?
- What will become of the thing when I throw it away?
The Supermarket Buying Guide covers 10 areas of ethical concern and it IS very much up to us how we ‘vote’ with our dollar.
- Ownership – choose Australian-owned brands. Keep dollars in Australia for jobs and community. See www.ausbuy.com.au or www.fightback.com.au.
- Packaging – reduce waste. Choose recycled content packaging and packaging that is recyclable in common council curbside collections. Avoid plastics code 3,4,5,6 and plastic wrap. See www.sustainability.vic.gov.au.
- Fairtrade – Choose coffee that is certified with the Fairtrade label. Ensure fair wages and working conditions, reduce exploitation by multinationals. See www.oxfam.org/coffee.
- Manufacture – buy local, reduce transport. Support community and growers. Choose items labelled ‘Produce of Australia’ or ‘Made in Australia’. See www.onlyoz.com.au.
- Nutrition – Safe and healthy for you. Choose food and drink with low salt, sugar, fat, no questionnable food additives or irradiated ingredients. See www.heartfoundation.com.au.
- Company record – boycott companies involved in damaging industries or those with poor environmental, social or governance track records. See www.slf.org/directory.
- Cruelty free – Not tested on animals. Choose cosmetics and cleaning products from ‘Choose Cruelty Free’ preferred products list. www.choosecrueltyfree.org.au www.caringconsumer.com.
- Organic – Grown without chemicals, pesticides and artificial fertilisers. Reduce land degradation. Choose fresh fruit and veg. that are certified organic. See www.organicchoice.com.au.
- GE free – Choose food and drink that are free from genetically engineered ingredients. Avoid unknown health risks, crop contamination and multinational control of our food. See Greenpeace True Food Guide www.truefood.org.au.
- Sodium & Phosphorus – use laundry products that are low in sodium and phosphorus. Reduce salinity and algae growth. Use grey water on the garden.See Lanfax report. www.lanfaxlabs.com.au.
How difficult would it be to be conscientious?
My shopping partner and I agreed that after ‘a few goes at it’ you would end up with your own shopping list and you would stick to that. Clearly the first few efforts would be slow but after that ‘normal shopping’ would resume and hopefully the pile in the supermarket trolley would become quite small as we use local greengrocers, butchers, chemists, florists, delis etc. I am quite proud of my small pile now and I enjoy the variety and the ‘human contact’ with retailers of the non Coles-Woolies variety!
Some lateral thinking
It has occurred to me that although a ‘duopoly’ to all intents and purposes, Coles and Woolies ARE two businesses in competition…
What if…?
What would be the response if individual store managers were tackled by grassroots shoppers about labelling, shelf space, local produce issues etc? Where I often shop the Coles and Woolies stores about a 5 minute walk apart – not hard to swap stores if ONE adopted some sustainability/local living economy principles. This might lead to BOTH stores being responsive to consumer desires.
BUT how could you organise ‘the grassroots’ to do this?
Once again, what if, the Neighbourhood House network or Lions or Rotary or school students or climate action networks tackled their local stores armed with info from the SLF?
When the Warrandyte Climate Action Network group started up there was a concerned 16 year old Warrandyte High student there with all the oldies. I heard a recent poll saying climate change – AKA our sustainable future – is top of the list of concerns for Australians right now. Maybe now is the time…
The ONLY thing the supermarkets have going for them is the convenience factor. Farmers’ markets are growing in popularity – I know plenty of people who wouldn’t dream of buying fruit and veg at the supermarket. You do hear about fruit kept for months in cool stores – a lot certainly isn’t ‘fresh’. We are so gulled by the law(!!) I mean by what is ‘allowed’ and how this is legally labelled.
For more info visit www.slf.org.au/directory/index.php?page=introduction
2 Comments
This ethical shopping thing is great. really, it is. but when it comes down to a choice between what i should buy as opposed to what i can afford, then living within my means wins. i can only dream of fair trade/organic coffee. i’m on social security and studying. i don’t drink, smoke or gamble and rarely drive my car, so i can’t be accused of living the high life at tax payers’ expense and stuffing myself on junk food. now, that said, there used to be 2 safeway supermarkets more or less within walking distance. the closest one (still open) is really expensive, rarely discounts anything, regularly runs out of basics (home brand bread, frozen vegetables, powdered milk). the cheaper one, slightly further away, has recently closed. it had basics, specials, even vaguely affordable fresh fruit and vegatables. NQR and ALDI are 2 buses or a car trip across town. i’ll shop with a conscience when i have the means to do so.
Lisa, you’ve set me a challenge – I’m thinking the whole ethical shopping concept is so-o-o-o-o complex you COULD be mistaken and there COULD be SOME competitively priced products that fit into SOME of the value categories we would like to support. I’ll do some research and let you know…we might be able to make a list of affordable, ethical products! Something is better than nothing – no?