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27 August 2010

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The People’s Supermarket – Shoppers of the world unite!

The co-op supermarket concept is giving the world real food for thought

 BY SEÁN Ó FLOINN

YET another store opened its doors in the past few weeks, selling an array of items from organic muesli and recycled toilet paper to ecological soap and fair-trade coffee. Its enthusiastic staff, sporting eye-catching bright yellow T-shirts,  work the tills and replenish the shelves. There are carrier bags, crisps, baskets, and customers young and old. But this is not just another run-of-the-mill supermarket - this is the People’s Supermarket (TPS), run by the people and for the people.

For a membership fee of £25 and a commitment to volunteer for four hours a month, you become a part-owner of TPS. You will be able to vote on what foods are stocked and influence how it is run and get a 10% discount on everything you purchase there.

The main driving forces behind this ‘socialist supermarket’ are a group of social entrepreneurs led by Arthur Potts Dawson. He is a successful eco-friendly chef who set up Waterhouse, Britain’s greenest restaurant. Arthur says:

“This supermarket will be communal. It will be friendly, local, cheap and democratic.”

He is striving to introduce a more ethical social alternative to the big supermarket chains. Funding from the local council, the Development Trusts Association and private donors have brought this project to life.

The concept is not new. It is modelled on the famous Park Slope Food Co-op in Brooklyn, New York, which first opened its doors in 1973 and now boasts over 14,000 members. Park Slope’s slogan is: “Good food at low prices for working members through co-operation.” It offers members who volunteer at the store savings of up to 40% off their weekly grocery bill. In stark contrast with most capitalist stores in the United States which have 100% mark-up on items, Park Slope has just 20%.

The Park Slope Food Co-op even provides free childcare to children of co-op members while their parents or guardians are working and/or shopping at the co-op. There are plans to introduce similar provision in TPS, alongside a café, kitchen and meeting place.

Co-ops are offering an affordable alternative to rapacious supermarket chains. They favour selling organic, minimally-processed and healthy produce, seeking to avoid products involving the exploitation of others. They also have admirable green policies, seeking out local ecological producers with fruit and vegetables sourced from some of the best local farmers markets.

The Park Slope model, embraced by TPS, is exposing the myth that you can only have either cheap or good food, and never both. One of TPS’s mission statements is to sell the best food at the lowest possible prices. Potts Dawson, evidently passionate about delivering affordable food to the masses, lambasts big supermarket chains.

“Supermarkets control how we buy food and what we eat and they make an absolute fortune from us. I want this to be a real wake-up call for people to see what supermarkets are doing to them and to show that there is an alternative model.”

They have an arduous task on their hands in challenging the traditional large capitalist supermarket. Out of every £8 spent in Britain, £1 is spent in Tesco. The giant supermarket chain amassed £3.4billion in pre-tax profits, up over 10% from the previous year. The pockets of its chief executive, Sir Terry Leahy, are bulging after notching up over £5.2million in salary and bonus last year. The company’s eight-person executive committee will share £24million between them.

With TPS and its egalitarian ideology, any profits will go back into making the food even cheaper still. There will be no obscene largesse with ridiculous dividends for shareholders or massive bonuses for bosses. It is the members who will benefit, all equally.

Potts Dawson criticises the behaviour of giants like Tesco.

“Supermarkets are making massive demands for profit to satisfy their shareholders and that’s very destructive for the world economy. They are flying cheap products across the world while local producers struggle to get their goods into local shops.”

On opening day in TPS, one store product label proudly professed: “I am the People’s Milk. I am British, fresh and cheaper than Tesco.” Although also stocking household brands, in addition to ‘The People’s Pint, TPS also sells 50 own-brand goods for £1 or less - including ‘The People’s Loaf’, free from additives and preservatives.

TPS has arrived at an opportune time with weekly shopping bills rising and Tesco alone currently expected to lose £85million of food per year as ‘waste’. The money we spend at the supermarket is not just spent on the food we eat - it also pays for the food they have to throw away. It is an unsustainable and foolish system. The co-op supermarket concept is giving the world real food for thought.

 

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