Local shops are for everyday - not just in bad weather
11/01/10 09:27
Cold weather makes us focus on the way in which our food is brought into our communities, whether to local shops or supermarkets. With milk and bread in short supply, as well as many other essentials such as porridge oats and whisky (well, we all have different priorities!) it is a real challenge to the usually highly efficient and reliable logistics of centralised deliveries from supermarket warehouses. The system works brilliantly, until the lorries can’t get either into or out of the depots.
I’m not a supermarket basher - I am proud to have a long association with Waitrose over more than a decade - but I do feel that these stores should be used in conjunction with local businesses rather than instead of. We should also remember that their prices are fixed on being able to sell vast numbers of items at a lower cost and so, yes, you will have to pay more in a smaller business but the value of that local shop or farm stall being there when you cannot get to a supermarket is enormous.
We must use or loose small shops. It’s at times like this that we really appreciate them but they are not just for bad weather. They have to make a living for their owners 365 days a year. Bread, milk, papers, lottery tickets, washing up liquid, porridge, local free-range eggs. Buy what you can locally - in snow or sunshine.