Supermarkets and Local Production

A pretty damning profile of why supermarket-centred distribution networks are part of the problem, not part of the solution.

Patrick Holden was forced to send his carrots to a Sainsbury's superpacker in East Anglia, trucking them 230 miles. The superpacker in Peterborough was not geared to dealing with small consignments. Holden's carrots had to be tipped into larger containers for washing, damaging up to 15% of the crop. After grading for cosmetic standards, Holden's carrots were suffering further losses, with up to half the total crop being graded out. Because they could only be packed once large enough batches had accumulated after washing, the carrots were also becoming prone to small patches of rot.

Organic carrots bought recently at Waitrose carry a picture of Peter Cornish, one of its "carefully selected growers", on the back of the pack, but in small print on the front the carrots' country of origin is listed as Italy. The story of watercress grown by the sparkling chalk streams of Hampshire accompanies a product imported from Portugal.