Supermarkets in Shetland - prices, ethics and experiences

[filskadacat]

Can anyone provide actual linkage to stories relating to such use of child labour? Hearsay, conjecture?

Here’s 1. a link to a Guardian piece:

 

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/cif-green/2009/dec/12/fair-trade-fairtrade-kitkat-farmers

 

Sorry - don't know why link didn't post first time...

[icepick239]

The FAIRTRADE FOUNDATION

[Queenie79]

Well I'm off to study economics before I buy anything more if as FilskadaCat says you need a good knowledge of economics before buying fairtrade because the same must apply for non fairtrade items too. Its amazing anyone buys anything at all. Maybe I'll just grow my own...

 

 

Or maybe I'll just go and sit on my piles of money, feel superior and look down on all those morally corrupt people.

[filskadacat]

Well I'm off to study economics before I buy anything more

 

I didn't mean that - obviously. There are several separate arguments going on on this thread, at times merging into one another and then wandering off again, and none of them with an incontrovertible resolution.

 

1. Beans vs varied diet if you're counting every penny - win for Tesco as the provider of cheap food. But less clear if you can afford to support in particular the country shops, on a 'use it or lose it' basis.

 

2. Tesco vs da street as provider of cheap anything - no clear winner as internet / mail order affect high streets everywhere, plus further factor of personal service on a spectrum from Camera Centre and GR's to...every other shop, it would seem.

 

3. Tesco as a force for evil in terms of sourcing from

(a) domestic suppliers who may be squeezed to unacceptably narrow margins

( morally questionable manufacturers abroad.

 

My Fairtrade post was really aimed only at point 3( - and even then, Fairtrade being as wonderful or not as it is made out to be is only part of that story. For a start M&S - and worse, Jaeger - are now selling linen jackets made in China. There goes my fluffy liberal argument that I don't shop in Primark because I don't approve of their sourcing - actually, it's because I can afford a bit better. But I can't afford dearer than Jaeger, and their clothes happen to fit me...

 

Then there's the whole MNCs using children as slave labour story. Adverse publicity forced Nike to improve its practices regarding the manufacture of footballs. Huge abuses stil exist. But on the other hand there are numbers of third world children earning a living which helps their family and bringing in actual money, as opposed to crops, would not be there otherwise; despite the majority of profits flowing back to the shareholders in the MNC's country of origin, there are being established at least the beginnings of manufacturing capability in the LEDC, from which eventually there may develop the infrastructure necessary for the transition from an agricultural subsistence economy - just as took place in western Europe with the Industrial Revolution.

 

Most of us do have at least a bit of a think about what we're buying - we all stopped buying South African fruit as at least one of the nails in the coffin of apartheid, didn't we. But factors 1 and 2 are inevitably closer to day-to-day existence and the tighter the budget, the greater will be the impact of Tesco's low prices. You'd have to be a very particular type of parent to explain to the kids that they were having beans again in order to help someone else's children on the other side of the world.

 

Sorry - that became longer than I had intended, but as I said, none of the answers is cut-and-dried. Must get off here and get on with what I am supposed to be doing!

[ISOT]

Just read this on the Shetland News website, somehow I don't think this will change anyones opinions tho but it certainly is an eyeopener.

 

http://www.shetland-news.co.uk/2010/August/letters/Tesco%20doesnt%20do%20cheap%20petrol.htm

 

Cheers

 

ps Grand opening today!!! A lot of BS and pr work at the front door I would think!

[Mutley]

Some ways to save petrol money here:

 

http://www.moneysavingexpert.com/travel/cheaper-fuel#efficient

[Hector's House]

Does anyone have the number to get through to Paul Clelland, or whoever deputises when he's off playing golf or whatever? I've got a big (for me anyway) complaint to register, but surprise surprise there is NO phone number anywhere to be had - not in the directory, on the til receipts, in their "Look at our shiny new store" leaflets, and certainly not on the website, which takes you through what is humourously called Customer Services and sounds like it is located in the deep end of the pool in Clickimin... where the operator couldn't find store number 6995 in "Lee-ick" (despite my spelling Lerwick THREE times!) then cut me off!

 

Help, please!

[Frances144]

01595 734000

[Para Handy]

Well since most of what you use is made in India or China

I-Pods

I-Pads

I-phones

Laptops Dell, Sony ect

Hovers

I wonder how many of the workers are getting 4 pounds a hour never mind a week.

So if your ethic’s is more important than anything else. How come you can post on a web site

With bean cans with string attached. How many are running around in foreign cars and not one’s designed and built by say British Leyland ect, ect Even the ferries and planes are all foreign built

You housing kits. Not everyone has money to waste. And have to account for every penny to make ends meet. People on a pension. There are to many born-again shoppers, preaching the gospels. On here

If you don’t like shopping at Tescos then don’t go there. Just stop trying to convert the others.

What’s next Tesco extremists strapping semtex in rucksacks (Tesco sells cheaper ones) or are you going to the bag shop because that’s more ethical.

[Hector's House]

Thanks Frances... but...

"The number you have dialled has not been recognised..."

 

Now why doesn't that surprise me? Perhaps Tescos corporate slogan is "more is less"?

[Spinner72]

Does anyone have the number to get through to Paul Clelland, or whoever deputises when he's off playing golf or whatever? I've got a big (for me anyway) complaint to register, but surprise surprise there is NO phone number anywhere to be had - not in the directory, on the til receipts,

 

I checked my reciept from today and it had a number, so I quickly entered "Tesco Lerwick" into google and got this page with the same number : http://www.tesco.com/storelocator/access/details.asp?bID=5760&l=L

 

No doubt they have plenty of numbers tho

[tom thumb]

am i the only one who thinks this thread is getting very boring

[paulb]

how about going in and speaking to them. it works for us. bought a phone that did not work the speaker was faulty. they changed it without a murmur. you never know you may be surprised.

[Queenie79]

Well since most of what you use is made in India or China

I-Pods

I-Pads

I-phones

Laptops Dell, Sony ect

Hovers

I wonder how many of the workers are getting 4 pounds a hour never mind a week.

So if your ethic’s is more important than anything else. How come you can post on a web site

With bean cans with string attached. How many are running around in foreign cars and not one’s designed and built by say British Leyland ect, ect Even the ferries and planes are all foreign built

You housing kits. Not everyone has money to waste. And have to account for every penny to make ends meet. People on a pension. There are to many born-again shoppers, preaching the gospels. On here

If you don’t like shopping at Tescos then don’t go there. Just stop trying to convert the others.

What’s next Tesco extremists strapping semtex in rucksacks (Tesco sells cheaper ones) or are you going to the bag shop because that’s more ethical.

 

I don't know why I'm surprised that people get so rattled. Maybe its because people feel uneasy if they start to think about ethical choices they're not currently choosing to think about.

 

I for one admit there are many areas of my consumer choices that aren't perfect but at least I'm trying...

[Hector's House]

Ok, got the right number and discussed the issue and now they are "looking into it".

 

Gosh, good idea paulb... if only I lived round the corner, eh? I try to keep my carbon bootprint down, and a phone call is initially the best option when you live 30 miles away. Anyway, as they now have £150 of mine in their system which "refused" the transaction, I now don't have enough funds til next payday for my petrol for commuting as I had to get what cash I had left out of a town ATM (the tesco one said I had NO credit!) to re-purchase the goods I could then afford.

Maybe if Tesco had a filling station by now then I would have been better off? Er...