From Johnston, Biro & MacKendrick, “Lost in the Supermarket: The Corporate-Organic foodscape and the struggle for food democracy”

There has been a massive surge in the popularity of organic food in the last two decades. With this, the organic industry has been transformed from marginal and niche to mainstream, with organic products standing side by side with conventional versions on most supermarket shelves. The meaning of ‘organic’ has itself changed correspondingly. For many consumers, organic has become simply a more expensive option, a price premium justified for the sake of a ‘purer’ vegetable or piece of meat, untouched by chemical pesticides, preservatives or antibiotics.

But this is far from the founding principles of organic farming. The organic belief system encompasses a range of issues designed to create an alternative way of producing and consuming food that benefits not only the environment and human health, but encourages a deeper understanding of the social and ethical aspects of food production. Had organic beliefs hit the mainstream in their purest form, the foundation for an ethical food revolution may have been set – the fact that they were instead watered down was a result of the corporate co-option of the organic movement.

References: [1]Johnston, Biro & MacKendrick, “Lost in the Supermarket: The Corporate-Organic foodscape and the struggle for food democracy” In: Antipode Vol 41, No 3 22/5/2009

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Provenance (where foods come from) sounds sexy. Think Cornish clotted cream, Scottish raspberries, all the rage on the menus of fancy restaurants and in supermarket advertising in the Sunday supplements. But declaring provenance doesn’t equate to saying it’s locally produced: You can buy, for example, Cornish clotted cream in Scotland and Hereford beef in London. Provenance is also somewhat one-dimensional; it describes the physical place of production but does not provide the broader economic, environmental and social aspects and benefits attributable to local food.

‘The typical supermarket contains no fewer than 30,000 items. About half of those items are produced by 10 multinational food and beverage companies. And roughly 140 people ? 117 men and 21 women ? form the boards of directors of those 10 companies. In other words, although the plethora of products you see at a typical supermarket gives the appearance of abundant choice, much of the variety is more a matter of packaging and branding than of true agricultural variety, and rather than coming to us from thousands of different farmers producing different local varieties, has been globally standardized and selected for maximum profit.’ – Frances Moore Lappé and Anna Lappé in ‘Hope’s Edge’[1]

The Soil Association says that local food is “food arising from a system of producing, processing and trading, primarily organic and sustainable forms of food production, where the physical and economic activity is largely contained within and controlled within the locality or the region where it was produced, which delivers health, economic, environmental and social benefits to the people in those areas.”[2]

Whilst supermarkets are very keen on provenance and have created a variety of ‘local’ sourcing initiatives, in reality the genuine local food sector is in danger of being co-opted by the big food retailers.

References [1] Francis Moore Lappe and Anne Lappe, In Hope’s Edge

[2] Sustain, Sustainable food chains; Briefing Paper One; Local Food, Benefits, Obstacles and Oppurtunities, 2002 – www.sustainweb.org/pdf/briefing1.pdf

Published in 2010.

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We are therefore pleased to announce the publication of our clear and concise, 24-page ‘Nuts & Bolts’ Guide to the ins and outs of the financial sector. From hedge funds to the money markets and derivatives, all of the major players and products are broken down from a critical perspective. With jargon deconstructed, case studies explained and many of the myths about the city and its operations debunked, this booklet is designed to give readers with little or no knowledge of the world of finance and banking an accessible overview of its workings.

This booklet is the first publication in our ‘Banking on Crisis’ series, which also consists in a news research blog (www.bankingoncrisis.org) and a series of ongoing workshops.

Published in 2012.

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Supermarkets wield immense power over the way we grow, buy and eat our food. They are shaping our environment, our health and the way we interact socially. These changes have gone unchallenged because consumers have been sucked into superstore lifestyles, persuaded that the opportunity to select from six different brands of cut-price oven chips at three in the morning represents choice and value.

But the tide may be turning. Unease at the true cost of supermarket food is spreading among consumers, who are beginning to join forces with the farmers and workers who have always know that supermarket ‘choice’ is a bad deal. This booklet aims to help campaigners get to grips with the reality of supermarket domination and argues why we must start looking for alternatives.

Contents

1. Overview: Supermarkets sweep up
2. The Cheap Food ‘Mantra’ – Stack it high! Sell it low!
3. Encouraging industrial agriculture and destroying small farms world-wide
4. A spoonful of organo-phosphates – Dangerous chemical usage in food & farming
5. Bye-bye High Street – The destruction of communities and jobs
6. Apples from Africa and pears from Peru – Food miles and climate change
7. Oiling the trolley wheels – Undue influence on government
8. Redefining ‘safe’ – The manipulation of health and safety requirements
9. The plastic smile – Shop and farm workers rights
10. ‘Rip-Off Britain’ – The Competition Commission enquiry
11. ‘Mummy, mummy, can we buy the Barbie spaghetti shapes?’ – promoting unhealthy processed food
12. Choice? Convenience? Value?
13. And for dessert… What can you do about it?
14. Resources

Published in 2004.

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Despite planning controls, the big four supermarkets (Tesco, Asda, Sainsburys and Morrisons) continue to battle for increased market share with ever more ambitious expansion plans. Independent retailers cannot compete and market towns and neighbourhoods across the country face the destruction of their high streets and the loss of small local retailers as the big supermarkets build their big edge of town sheds or take over convenience stores. As more and more people decide to take action against the corporate takeover of their communities by the big supermarkets (more than 200 active local groups, that we know of) we’ve revised and updated our popular guide to stopping supermarket developments.

The guide gives an overview of what happens when a big supermarket threatens to move into your town – the impact they are likely to have on the local economy and the community and the tools and inspiration that you can use to oppose them. It also has a directory of campaign groups, which is not definitive, but gives details of a selection of past, present, successful and not so successful local campaigns. All the contacts listed are happy to share experiences and discuss strategies/tactics with other local groups campaigning against supermarkets. There is also an extensive resource list.

Although the supermarkets appear big and powerful with friends in all the right places, armed with some knowledge of planning and campaigning tactics it is possible to take them on, and win! From Hammersmith to Norwich local communities have succeeded against the might of the big supermarkets: campaigning groups have a great deal of knowledge and skills to share with each other.

Published in 2006.

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The debate on climate change is surrounded by hype and vested interests. Technologies are being considered not for their effectiveness but for their profitability. Some proposed solutions would actually lead to an increase in emissions. Many would bring about great social injustice.

Beyond that, the promise of a future technofix is being used as a stalling tactic by those who want to keep on burning fossil fuels.

This report investigates the large scale technologies that corporations and governments are putting on the table, including hydrogen, carbon capture and storage, agrofuels, electricity from nuclear, solar and wind, as well as a range of ideas to reflect the sun’s energy or remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere.

It finds what works, what doesn’t, the present state of these industries and where they’re heading. It explains why, even though many of the technologies do work, the corporate-capitalist model cannot deploy them effectively, and it goes in search of more realistic and socially just solutions.

Published in 2008.

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Published in 2014.

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We would like to think that it is and so have published the second part to the Corporate Watch Guide to Finance and Banking.

A common trend in mainstream analysis of the financial crisis has been to blame individual institutions or managers for ‘bad investment decisions’ – the good old ‘bad apples’ argument. The first article in this briefing deconstructs this and other myths and shows how the credit crunch came about as an inevitable result of the recent developments in the present arrangements of the economic and financial system, i.e. capitalism.

The second article, Crisis Stories, provides summaries of, and comments on, different interpretations and analyses of the financial crisis (Marxist, Keynesian and so on). Though it was originally written and published online in 2009, the author’s analysis of the credit crunch still holds up and is, in fact, supported by recent developments.

Finally, to complement ‘our’ critical take on the crisis, we have included an interview with a bank trader to give readers a glimpse into how ‘they’ think.

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