Takagi,

“It’s called free trade. I can walk into a butcher’s shop, ask him to make me a sausage to my needs at a certain price and he can do it or not.”

You might call it free trade. Many butchers I know would call it being a cheeky prick.

“I’m not sure I’ll cope with my inadequate sausage making skills and the lack of hot chicks who dig that.”

Never had any complaints about my sausages on that score, Takagi-san; although the need to introduce dating into a discussion on sausage-making indicates either that you equate sausages with sex, which would make you a pervert in my book, or else that you’re a sarcastic bastard unaccustomed to speaking to people you either can’t dominate or who don’t agree with everything you say. Get over it. It’s called democracy.

“If it wasn’t for people with spoiled, over-indulged palates (and good punctuation), you’d have even less butchers and fishmongers than now. It’s precisely because of people who will pay for something a bit more specialised that they’re in business.”

No, it’s because they need to eat. Then the supermarket comes along and puts them out of business, and gets their children hooked on the fodder known as chicken nuggets.

Surreptitious Evil,

Carp. Their economic model was stickier than a Toyota’s accelerator. What they did was a bunch of drongs cheerleading them in the Western press.

Sobers,

“If you think there is such pent up demand, why don’t you open such an emporium and see how you get on?”

Because I would have to provide myself with a means of restricting my own hours under the Disability Discrimination Act. The theory’s good, Grasshopper, but just doesn’t work out in practice.

Having also sold the Kirby for a living, I’m not sure I agree. I’ll be back tomorrow bright and early.

So 25000 people have a choice. They choose independent shop, and get whatever it provides (possibly higher quality at higher prices, but not necessarily) or they choose Big Retail and get what they provide.

If all 25000 went to the independent shops what would happen? They would grow, get bigger. Open more shops. Possibly expand to the next town. Eventually who knows? Nationwide even. Before you know it a new chain of stores, all on the back of customer choice.

Never underestimate the power of the consumer – ask the vacuum cleaner manufacturers – Dyson came from nowhere to a large market share, all on the back of an innovative product, good marketing and word of mouth.

The fact is that there are only enough people in your town of 25000 who want more expensive meat and fish to support one of each shop. If you think there is such pent up demand, why don’t you open such an emporium and see how you get on?

Nope, they just had their housing (okay, land price) bubble burst a couple of decades before ours did.

Oh, the irony. Fewer butchers!

But the point is valid, of course.

Why you think yourself to be of such significance and consequence that a butcher should go out of their way to make a sausage to your recipe is beyond me.

It’s called free trade. I can walk into a butcher’s shop, ask him to make me a sausage to my needs at a certain price and he can do it or not.

Having spent two years ‘worth of Saturdays making sausages in a butcher’s shop while at university, I say this with some conviction – I’m quite sure I’d whup your in a sausage-making contest any day.

I’m not sure I’ll cope with my inadequate sausage making skills and the lack of hot chicks who dig that.

However, where I live there is now only one independent butcher and one independent fishmonger in a town of 25,000. The supermarkets now largely dictate not only what you eat, but also its quality. But your spoiled, over-indulged palate’s got what it wanted, so that’s all right- I hope you’re happy.

If it wasn’t for people with spoiled, over-indulged palates (and good punctuation), you’d have even less butchers and fishmongers than now. It’s precisely because of people who will pay for something a bit more specialised that they’re in business.

Cute screen name – if memory serves, it’s that of the Japanese-American businessman, played by James Shigata, who’s iced in his office by Alan Rickman in the first ‘Die Hard’ movie.

I really don’t couldn’t care less about what could or could not be bought in Hampstead in the 1970′s. Why you think yourself to be of such significance and consequence that a butcher should go out of their way to make a sausage to your recipe is beyond me. Having spent two years ‘worth of Saturdays making sausages in a butcher’s shop while at university, I say this with some conviction – I’m quite sure I’d whup your in a sausage-making contest any day. If you can think you can make sausages better than a butcher, put on a white coat and come on down to the mincer. However, where I live there is now only one independent butcher and one independent fishmonger in a town of 25,000. The supermarkets now largely dictate not only what you eat, but also its quality. But your spoiled, over-indulged palate’s got what it wanted, so that’s all right- I hope you’re happy.

‘And when Alexander saw the extent of his domain, he wept, for there were no more worlds to conquer’ – Hans Gruber (Alan Rickman) ‘Die Hard’. How apposite to be having this discussion 22 years after the movie came out. The Japanese went bust very shortly afterwards, their business model being comprehensively defective. There’s a moral in there somewhere; such as that nothing lasts forever.

“What Kay-Tie says.

The shopper has little to complain about (and I like supermarkets, full stop), but the farmers are getting squeezed – more to the point, to the extent that agricultural subsidies don’t accrue to landowners, they are soaked up by supermarkets because they deduct the value of the subsidies from the prices they pay farmers.”

Sounds like a good reason to scrap the common agricultural policy.

Or are you just imposing your ‘right on’ values on the broad mass of people who are quite happy with the service large supermarkets provide? Such as the list Monty accurately provided?

Unless you lived in somewhere like Hampstead, your small shops weren’t supplying you with extra virgin olive oil, dozens of varieties of wine and ciabatta.

A typical local shop in the 1970s gave you a choice of Trex Vegetable Oil, Blue Nun and both sorts of bread (white and brown).

The small shops that survived were generally the most interesting ones: the butcher who can make a sausage to your recipe, the wine merchants that you can discuss the current Margaux vintages with and the music shop selling the latest rare import vinyl from Chicago.

Issues such as wanting to go to supermarkets are irrelevant. No one I know really ‘wants’ to shop there….
—–

Hello Matthew, I’m Monty.
Now you know someone who does want to shop there.
They are open when I get home from work.
I can park without having to pay, or panic about running out of meter time.
They stock the things I want to buy.
The quality is generally good.
The prices are reasonable.
They have toilet facilities, including disabled access, and also baby changing rooms, and all are generally very clean.
I can buy a sea bass, a cauliflower, an electric kettle, school uniform, flat screen TV, bunch of flowers, stationery, pick up my dry-cleaning, and get my prescription filled all in the same shop.

Years ago, the small shopkeepers would tell me I couldn’t buy fillet steak on a Tuesday because “there’s no call for it during the week”, then they would close at lunchtime every Wednesday. They would also close the shop every day just as hordes of office and factory women were pouring out of buses and trains hoping to buy some fresh produce. Without the supermarkets, that is what we would have today.

(as I am learning to say in blogspace)

I think we can both be right. there can be a kind of groupthink in a market that stops people – makes it difficult, slows it down – charging/paying different prices. the farmers suffers. Not a cartel, agreed, but not competition, either, so Tim’s original point is still not right.

the theory’s there: organic local farmers will stop selling to tesco’s and go out of business (get out of the sector), so local farmers’ markets will spring up and fill the void, but i still suspect if the small number of players in the market have power to set prices, and do so with very fat margins for themselves, there is a cartel-in-fact operating.

Tim adds: We can also go further. One of the well known problems is that both a highly efficient cartel and a highly competitive market will, in terms of prices among the players, look exactly the same.

Same prices, moving in lockstep….what is it, cartel or competitive market?

point is Tim, numbers don’t mean competition – that’s a separate question.

The shopper has little to complain about (and I like supermarkets, full stop), but the farmers are getting squeezed – more to the point, to the extent that agricultural subsidies don’t accrue to landowners, they are soaked up by supermarkets because they deduct the value of the subsidies from the prices they pay farmers.

No, they don’t “control” it, they constitute it; they have no control. Tesco can no more prevent anyone from using the corner shop than Doris at the corner shop can prevent them from using Tesco. 75% of grocery shopping is done at those supermarkets because that’s where 75% of shoppers want to go. (Actually, the proportion is higher than 75%; supermarket prices are lower – which is why people go there – so 75% of value is more than 75% of volume.)