Reply With QuoteVery commendable.
Over here in France a fair proportion of my spend is allocated in the way you suggest and a much more enjoyable experience it is too.
Maybe not so easily done in the chain dominated UK though.
Where possible , to spend my money as often as possible with local independent small businesses ,as opposed to large chains. That is all , thankyou
Good luck everybody. Have a good one.
Very commendable.
Over here in France a fair proportion of my spend is allocated in the way you suggest and a much more enjoyable experience it is too.
Maybe not so easily done in the chain dominated UK though.
Good man.
It's hard. I also try, but the lure of the big box shifters is hard to resist when you want a commodity item and the local shop costs 50% more than the chain.
There isn't a place to buy fruit or veg in my town that isn't Tesco or M+S, but we have an exellent butchers we spend a fortune at and a bookshop we try to help stay in business.
Good on yer though, living in Norfolk, I can see some challenges on the fashion and technology front. I suppose at least you don't live on the Isle of Wight.
On a more serious note I applaud the intent but wonder how easy it is to do in the UK these days. We do fairly well on the food front in Berlin as we have local street markets on five days in the week and quite a few stallholders are farmers from Brandenburg selling their produce direct. Markets are also a little more ingrained in the shopping culture so are full of ordinary people just doing their shopping rather than an over-priced jaunt for the chattering classes (something I perceive quite a few farmer's markets to be). The supermarket is normally just for toilet paper, water and cleaning products and the like - at least, as much as we can. When I'm in London I don't know how I'd manage without Waitrose - there just doesn't seem to be much of an alternative to supermarkets though maybe it's easier outside of the metropolis.
With other stuff we've tried and failed. I recently bought an AV Receiver and attempted to purchase with a couple of local suppliers and simply couldn't complete the transaction - one because they didn't take Visa (not uncommon here) and with other I just got caught in some kind of Catch 22-style spiral on their website (I left some frustrated feedback before I clicked away but never heard anything back). In the end the business went to Amazon.
Good luck and let us know how you get on.
Can I have any spare coupons you may have please.
Well done.
It's something I would very much like to achieve, but Milton Keynes is nothing but chains. There is a decent selction of butchers, but I am yet to find somewhere that sells local fruit and veg that doesn't cost more than twice the local Sainsbury's. I'd love a proper bakers as well.
What part of London are you in?Originally Posted by Carlton-Browne
Here in Cricklewood, north west London, there are three medium sized local supermarkets (Iceland, Co-operative and a Tesco Metro) but there are also dozens of independent, non-chain grocers, butchers (halal, of course), and even two fishmongers. There is also a roadside fresh fruit and veg stall that has operated for at least 35 years.
Fairplay to you sir.
This MO is certainly easier on the continent...
Not really in the same vein as the OP, but since moving away from the UK we've completely stopped big shops!
about 6 times a week we just go out to any one of a number of local places and get exactly what we need (some are part of a chain though), since doing this the amount of crap we eat (oven meals etc) has drastically reduced and more pleasingly the amout of food we waste is now virtually nonexistent
imo there's a lot to said for buying just what's required as it's required, and if this can be done via local independent retailers, then better still!
http://www.buzzfeed.com/floperry/ses...-thins#1iasrug
Hehehe
I try to do the same wherever possible.
I'd rather pay a little more than lose independent businesses.
Excellent. may I also suggest you have your milk delivered as well.
Whitton, a suburb of Twickenham, where the local Tescos wiped out the high street over a decade ago. It is just starting to recover.
I know Whitton. A girlfriend lived there when I first met her.
I think it depends on population density. Whitton is significantly quieter and less busy than Cricklewood. Despite the three chain supermarkets here in Cricklewood there is still trade for the non-chain businesses.
Local veg boxes maybe or someone like Able & Cole?
But is Able and Cole any better than a supermarket .. after all they have national coverage, deliver to the door to keep you off the high street (not to mention environmental impacts of bespoke delivery), cost a load more than a supermarket, and source from pretty much the same suppliers as the supermarkets?
I live just round the corner from Binghams micro brewery - this seems like a good place to start
Mind I do think the OPs gesture is very noble ... but for me the issue isnt so much the higher pricing of the independents, it is the lack of any discernable difference in service from an independent and on the most part restrictive opening hours.
As an example my local fruit and veg shop is very nice, but the quality is no better than my local Waitrose, it isnt open when Im coming home work, and has much lower stock levels so cant be depended upon to have what I need.
Of course there are exceptions particularly if specialist advice is needed on something, but for general day to day things the supermarkets win out on opening hours, price, and availability.
Use the farmers market for veg and cheese, and goodies every other Wednesday, also another local greengrocer. And there's a farm that sells eggs, and good tatws (spuds to you). Not everyone is that lucky I know.
As a purveyor of fine foot health I fully support your campaign for local services
We don't have a Waitrose near our cave dwelling for 40 miles daahling!
Last edited by sestrel; 1st October 2014 at 19:24.
Don't know, just an example. We collect a veg bag from our local pub all locally sourced and seasonal. If using supermarkets is unavoidable we at least try to find UK sourced rather than getting Pacific salmon we'll buy Scottish for example. Where possible that it, getting UK sourced bananas can be tricky for example.
I myself have been doing this for years, I always go to my Local hardware store instead of B&Q etc., yes he is a little more expensive, but I don't need to travel to purchase, I also make sure I purchase my meat, fish and bakery items from locals or other small family run businesses,
sadly I cant do it with everything, grocery shopping for example, I need to go to the supermarket, with three kids I just cannot afford to go to the little Foodways we have here, It would cost me three times as much monthly.
IMHO it is the only way to combat the globalisation of companys into one entity that sells everything, sadly its too late for product manufacturing, Jonson and Johnson, and Unilever for example.
I shop local.
My former local hardware store in now a mosque. As an aside, it doesn't have planning permission to change the use of the premises from retail shop.
** edit **
It seems that the high population density I referred to in an earlier message works better for food shops than for hardware supplies! ;-)
Last edited by markrlondon; 1st October 2014 at 20:32.
I live in Twickenham and there is a farmers market in the car park behind M&S every Saturday, decent fish and butchers on the high Street (was a butchers in Whitton last time I went but never bought there), all that said while I frequent both for meat my girlfriend prefers to do the shop at the local waitrose for the inevertable convenience.l which sadly wins out on most occasions.
First choice — local independent
Second choice — local branch of UK chain
Third choice — UK based, UK tax-paying internet seller
Last resort — parasitic internet seller doing everything they can to avoid paying taxes
This is my strategy also. I can't always avoid the big box stores where I live, but I can at least make sure my beer is local...
- Matt
http://forum.tz-uk.com/showthread.ph...ight=Riverford
Whilst I tend to agree that we should be doing more to keep our local businesses afloat I can't help thinking that somewhere down the line a lot of us are having our pants pulled to one side over all this organic lark
I purchased a Riverford Cottage veg box at the start of this year just to try them out and in an attempt to keep it all local but the financial side of it was horrific. There is no way they represent value for money for the amount of produce you get and the normal man in the street with a family will pick Tescos/Asda a lot of the time.
We had a new green grocer come in to the town last year and his prices were jacked so high he got very little business and now has gone. I'm all in favour of keeping it local but I think some of them need to look at their prices.
nearest shop to me is a Tesco.
I would go out of my way to shop at small independent stores, the trouble is they only seem to be open when I am at work, maybe if they could put the effort in business would improve.
Me too
I like to support local businesses, too.
Bit of a challenge when I need some clothes as my tailor doesn't travel.*
*AΩ doesn't have a tailor. He has someone who patches up his jumbo cords and repairs the holes in his sport jackets. Doesn't really count.
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