How the business model of a supermarket destroyed Fairtrade.

I am reading a book from 2004 called 'Shopped the shocking power of the British Supermarkets' by Food Journalist JoannaBlythman. It makes extremely interesting reading in light of the news that Sainsburys will be dropping the Fairtrade logo and creating its own!

Would you trust a supermarket to implement their own system of Fair Trade? They don't seem to understand the first thing about trading fairly in business, most of them act like playground bullies. In the book I am reading, Dave Hammond from Shetland Smokehouse is quoted when speaking about his own product that the supermarket then copied: "Consumers were getting a £1.00 product in £1.99 packaging. They lifted our product and packaging, benefited from all our research and development work. It cost us a five-figure sum and five jobs. It was pretty gut-wrenching. This is what supermarkets do. They use small companies as cheap new product development and look to us for innovation then use their own muscle to capitalise on it. They purport to extend consumer choice when in reality they are denying it, denying the public access to proper food."

Reading this, it becomes evident to me that #Sainsburys deciding to drop the #Fairtrade mark and deciding to do their own version instead, where standards are monitored internally, is the same modas operandi as usual.

That supermarkets and companies such as Nestlé were even allowed to get involved with Fairtrade and put the logo on their products always left a sour taste in my mouth but I went along with it because I listened to those that said the glass is half full, not half empty. It didn't matter, apparently, about the unethical parts of their operations, it was about taking baby steps and helping these #bigbusinesses see the worth in being #ethical. As a #Fairtrade #Campaigner and business owner, I championed those changes, created the first Fairtrade Business directory for my area, worked with a local theatre company to get a tour into local schools of a performance about the importance of Fairtrade. I worked on sourcing Fairtrade ingredients for our shop and right from the beginning every cup of coffee and tea was Fairtrade.

Yet, over the years the Fairtrade Mark has become watered down because they allowed it to be used by what I would class as unethical companies. Our coffee suplier EqualExchange recognised this, way before we did. They were one of the first companies involved with the Fair Trade story and just last year decided to take the Fairtrade logo off their products. I believe this is because they no longer wanted to associate themselves with a mark that could be used so easily by companies whose ethical pedigree was nowhere near 100%. These companies were blatently using the Fairtrade logo as a mark of convenience to cynically cash in on what they saw as the Fairtrade Cash Cow. How could it be anything but, when these same companies still carry out unfair practices in other parts of their operation? For a time the Fairtrade mark grew in strength and profile because they allowed their mark to be used by these companies and of course, they profited from the cash too, who can blame them? Money talks! However, the chink chink of the money is sounding louder to Sainsbury's than the voices of the farmers protesting their worries about losing the guaranteed Fairtrade minimum, the Fairtrade premium for the community and consumer confusion over what the Fairtrade mark really means.

When Equal Exchange first dropped the Fairtrade logo, I challenged them about it and explained how it was really important to me that we were selling coffee where the farmers and workers had been paid properly and treated fairly. We had quite a number of phone conversations and emails until I understood where they were coming from, where they felt that it was too easy for corporate bodies to use the mark as a badge of convenience and the true meaning of Fair Trade had been lost.
Equal Exchange made the right decision and I am happy that we listened to them and considered what they told us. It does seem to make a mockery of the Fair Trade ethos when a supermarket sells its own brand of coffee for a couple of pounds!
The supermarkets have made a mess of our farming communities here in Britain and the quality of the 'fresh' produce we have access to on the supermarket shelves and slowly and steadily, they have eroded the intrinsic value of the Fairtrade logo.

It could have been a happy ending where supermarkets getting involved in Fairtrade could have inspired them to analyse their whole trading systems. The Fairtrade Association did a great thing in giving them that major opportunity. Unfortunately, like an unrehabilitated wicked old witch, the supermarkets have once again taken something that was once so good for people and turned it into something that's only good for profit!

10 Good Reasons To #SupermarketSwap Now!

Nigel: Serious about #SupermarketSwap

I am right in the middle of reading a very informative book about Supermarkets and the amount of power they have over the food industry and how the more we spend in them, the more power they have and the less choice we have.

The book is called Shopped. The Shocking Power of British Supermarkets and is written by Joanna Blythman, a leading investigative food journalist. The book was written in 2004 and things have disintegrated a lot further since then! Take for example two pieces of news this week,

The first being that Sainsbury's have announced in a meeting with Fairtrade Farmers, that they are going to create their very own brand of Fairtrade, their own Fairtrade label and they will put in force their own regulations and monitor themselves. The Fairtrade Farmers are extremely concerned that there will be no Fairtrade premium and that there will be no minimum guarantee and that the public will be confused about what Fairtrade is really about. Supermarkets take the Fairtrade Logo and use it on some of their products and yet happily screw their British suppliers into the ground by negotiating lower prices retrospectively and other massive companies like Nestle, will put a Fairtrade logo on some of their products and yet insist that access to clean water is not a human right and tempt African Mums to bottle feed instead of breast feed!  So, from taking small steps to support the ethos of Fairtrade, the supermarkets are now beginning to do what they usually do, take someone else's great idea, let that someone else pay for all the development that goes into it and then just do it themselves, where the only way they measure their success is profit and the bottom-line, rather than any ethical aim, or the long-term viability of a community, or of the world.

The second piece of news is that Tesco would like to buy out Booker Wholesale. Booker Wholesale actually supply independent shops across the UK! It doesn't take a genius to work out that this is going to make it virtually impossible for any independent using Booker Wholesale to be able to fairly compete with Tesco. Tesco has this week asked the Monopolies Commission if they could possibly speed up the investigation into whether they can go ahead with the transaction or not. Some board members have resigned over this idea and not one shareholder has been heard to show any enthusiasm over the idea, from reports online.

10 Good Reasons To #SupermarketSwap Now!

1/ You'll spend money on local traders who will pay tax, if they earn enough and then in turn will spend their money on other local businesses in the community, thus contributing far more to the local economy per pound than any supermarket.

2/ You'll enjoy a more personal service, where the number one aim is not necessarily to make a profit but to create a long term relationship that is a win/win situation for everyone, the supplier, the business and the consumer.

3/ No long queues. Mainly because everyone is standing in the supermarket queue and not in the independent shop's queue!

4/ You'll buy little and often, which is much better as there is less food waste and buying in an independent means you are less likely to over buy and over spend on stuff that you didn't want anyway. Read more about the waste generated by supermarkets, in an article by Joanna Blythmann, the Journalist who has written the book I am reading at the moment!

5/ It's good to support a local family that you know personally and you know they are getting your money, rather than a few directors at the top of a chain, that already have lots of money.

6/ You can ask an independent trader to get an item in that you specifically require and they will do their utmost to get it in, or point you in the right direction to another independent business.

7/ Each independent shop has it's own unique atmosphere that lends a unique character to our high streets across the UK. A local shop has its own individual brand of personality that stems out from the proprietors running them. A supermarket is a clinical practical place, there is no joy in Supermarket shopping,for most people. Going into an independent shop is a whole experience in itself, you connect with the shopkeeper at least and even with the other customers. Which leads onto my next point...

8/ Community! A good high street filled with independent shops, like the one we have in Shepton Mallet is an easy way for individuals to access the community, without actually knowing anyone in the first place.

9/ To promote choice. If the supermarkets have a monopoly, they can then charge as high as they like prices to the consumer and pay as low as they like prices to their suppliers. Every time you make a concerted effort to divert your spending into a local business, you are helping to shape the high street.

10/ Supermarkets want you to see them as the answer to your shortage of time and sell you pre-made meals at a premium but it really only takes a few minutes to create a dish from scratch with fresh ingredients bought from your local market, or shop. If you buy smaller amounts less often but better quality and containing better nutrition, those cheap rows of custard creams and fizzy pop look less and less attractive, especially when we take into account the unaccounted for costs to our environment, our health and our communities.

In Shepton Mallet high street, we have the Friday Market every Friday and independent shops up and down the high street, as well as some great charity shops too. Now is the time, more than ever to make one small change to your shopping habits. I am not saying that you should completely drop your supermarket shop, I am just saying try to challenge yourself and make a small change. When you are in a supermarket or chain, put just one thing down and come and get it on the high street instead.

When you find yourself in my shop, ask yourself what you can get from us that you would normally get from the supermarket and get it from us instead.

If you don't find what you want, order it in, talk to us about it! If you don't have the time to come in, tell us what you want and we will bring it round to you.

We can all decide that it's not worth taking up the challenge, we can all decide to keep shopping in the supermarkets and we can let our high streets slip away but we have to do something to challenge the way things are, the cost of your food is not just the price you see on the label, it's the price you pay with your health, your children's health, the well-being of our community and of our world!

You have the power of the pound in your pocket, please use it wisely.

Copy Cat Businesses and how to Cope!

Picture by Anne-Marie Sanderson

I am feeling so annoyed having read one of my friend's posts on Facebook where she tells us that whole chunks of her website copy and ideas have been stolen and placed on someone else's website and business literature.

It's made me think about all the times that Gunter and I have suffered from this same copycat syndrome. It doesn't stop there, they will go after your client base too. We even had a business that tried to steal our name and our logo, let alone the ideas!

The gratifying factor is that they copy the things they see but they will never know the true secret to your success that they try to emulate, that's not to say that copying doesn't undermine your business and take the bread out of your mouths but it does mean their days are numbered, their longevity is questionable and their ethical sensibilities are none, even if they insist their business is ethical.

When someone copies you, the usual response from well-meaning friends is that you can choose to see it as flattering, however if someone steals your car, no one says that is flattering. I prefer to look at it this way, the threat to your business is a challenge for you, a challenge for you to focus on the positive and not the negative. Choose to concentrate on your business and all the good things you do and choose to ignore the other business, do not support it, or help to promote it. The one thing that I have noticed is that people that copy are intrinsically negative thinkers and struggle to realise their own brilliance, when they realise their own brilliance, they won't have to rely on yours and in that lies their weakness, if they take on you and try to compete against you, with your own ideas, not their ideas, then how will they ever win that battle? They can't! Their days are numbered because once you cut them from your circle and you are not so generous with your time and your ideas, they will have to stop copying you.

It is a long, slow and painful lesson for them to learn but copying just does NOT WORK. It is a simple equation a business that copies = FAILURE. That business will not last long because copying someone else means that faced with their own challenges in business, they will not have the resources, the though processes, or the experience of how to deal with challenges, they only know how to copy.

So, to anyone, especially my friend, who feels copied in business and stolen from, please take comfort in this, as long as you focus on your business and your positives, you will succeed no matter what, unfortunately I cannot say the same for business owners that copy. They say jealousy is the sincerest form of flattery, that's what they say about copying too......but copying only cheats everyone involved, the business owners and the public.

The one that copies will almost always be a friend, a friend who asks your advice and then takes your secrets for themselves, they'll treat you kindly and then take from you, rather like a conman....'He always seemed so nice', people say after their life savings have been taken, think about it, he wouldn't have been able to take your life savings if he seemed nasty, would he! Yes, it will feel painful cutting them out at first because you're a human with a conscience.

Having been in this situation many times over the past 7 years in Enfield and in Shepton Mallet. I know the way forward for you is to know your positives and concentrate on them.

It is hard to focus on the positive but keep going and blank that business out from your radar. Focus on your goals and your aims and what you are doing.

Celebrity TV Presenter Supports Our 'Say No to Timpson at Tesco' campaign!

It's about time you had a good old update about our campaign to 'Say No to Timpson at Tesco', isn't it.

In July, James Timpson, the Managing Director of Timpson, gave me a call to have a chat about the situation in Shepton Mallet, where a planned Timpson pod, installed in the Tesco retail park will threaten our high street, even more. I was really looking forward to that chat, knowing full well, that he would of course listen to sense, community duty and ethics, I was looking forward to putting the phone down and rushing to tell Mike Alford, the cobbler's son, the good news. I knew that we would make a difference and I knew that James Timpson would acknowledge that the Townsend location, as an edge of town retail park, would prove to be a valid threat indeed to the high street and I knew that he would reassure me that he would ask Tesco to withdraw the planning application.

Oh, but this didn't happen, at all. Mr Timpson did try to reassure me but unfortunately he tried to reassure me that when he has a shop in a town centre and then he opens one on a retail park, the takings in the other shop, on the high street are not affected and if they are then only marginally so. I pointed out that this was an edge of town retail park, rather than an out of town retail park but he didn't really seem to take that point on board. He also told me that what they were doing was not morally wrong in his eyes. He also said that if Timpson thought for one minute that it would affect the shop already in the High Street, they would not do it.

I asked Mr Timpson, if he would come to Shepton Mallet, to have a look at the situation and to also meet with the shop keepers, to see what they thought and felt about the planning application to put a Timpson pod in the Townsend Retail Park, that invitation was refused, although he said he would maybe pop in for a coffee one day.

To say I was disappointed with that outcome, wouldn't do my feelings justice. I felt very, very wronged indeed. It was good that Mr Timpson took the time to call me and to talk and to be interested but I am afraid he did it just so that I could spread his word of good intentions and he wasn't actually interested in a conversation, or a negotiation about where his Timpson pod could go. I know where I'd like it to go but that's another matter.

I felt that was a blow to the campaign and I hadn't achieved what I set out to do.

The next blow was when one of my new Facebook friends was looking for a job in Shepton Mallet and came across an advert for a trainee shoe repair person, for their branch in Shepton Mallet! I couldn't believe the cheek of it! Can you imagine interviewing people for a position for a job in a pod, that hasn't even got planning permission? Can you imagine doing that? Can you imagine being interviewed for that job, you're skint, been unemployed for ages, spend time, money and hope on sending off your CV and then being interviewed and there isn't even actually a JOB! That is just so wrong.

Then one day, Mike Alford, came rushing into the shop to tell me that the petition had been mentioned in Channel 4's Grand Designs Magazine and that the TV Presenter Kevin McCloud had signed it. It's in the October issue! I am so grateful to Kevin McCloud for supporting our campaign in this way. This has given the campaign a real boost, with front page coverage from Shepton Mallet Journal and they've also printed the link to the petition in the paper, which is fantastic. I can see the petition is now reaching more locals, with more signatures trickling in. At the time of writing we are on 486, getting to 500 would be great!

Please sign our Petition.

Then, after signing our petition please take the following steps to support our campaign:

1/ Please share this petition with your friends, via social media and email.

2/ Please email Tessa Munt, to express your opposition:    Tessa.munt.mp@parliament.uk

3/ Spend at least £10 a week in your local independent shops instead of Tesco! Don't forget Shepton Mallet's Friday Market, with Fruit, Vegetables, Meat, Fish, Baked Goods, Plants and Flowers, as well as our unique High Street!

TESCO, 'Every Little Helps' so go on then, help!

I am just a shopkeeper with two shops and one of the most important things for me in business is ethics and sustainability, in fact, all my business decisions are taken with that in mind, in balance with the economics. I am not one for taking a business decision just because it would be good financially, it has to be sustainable and ethical and I have to be able to sleep at night and to know that I have helped my community and contributed to it in a positive way. Why can't Tesco do that?

It's no secret that Tesco are struggling, especially after the news that their CEO Philip Clarke was ousted after poor financial results. I believe #Tesco is suffering financially because they are too aggressive in upscaling their retail operations, at the expense of local communities and local long established businesses. Surely they must realise that economic times are extremely difficult. In their rapid diversification, they have not chosen the best option, this aggressive way of doing business destroys the economy of the local community, it directly takes the pounds out of the pockets of the very people, that Tesco need to be cash rich, their customers!

Someone needs to make Tesco see logical, economical sense:

In the short term profits rise with aggressive trading but in the long term, agressive trading destroys the health of the very economy it relies upon for it's success.

If I could have a chat with the Chairman of Tesco, not the CEO, as he is leaving and not with the incoming CEO because he'd be new to the job, this is what I would like to say:

'When Tesco decides to really give back to the community, when the relationship is truly symbiotic, instead of stifling, then you will see sustainability in your business.

When you give a percentage of your profits to your community, you will see that the community will choose to support you.

Think of sustainability and success in business, as being like the water cycle, if there was someone at the top siphoning off a large percentage of water for themselves, then the amount of water in the cycle would decrease and they too, would not be able to enjoy the resource of plentiful water, as the water cycle would have been destroyed, it would no longer be sustainable. That is what is happening to our economy, you are hoarding the finances, not sharing and that is why your profits will fall and fall. It is due to greed and faulty thinking that you have got yourselves into this mess. 

At the moment Tesco, I can't afford to support you. If I support you, then that would mean I would be supporting your plans which have already caused devastation across the UK's High Streets and supporting the planning application for a Timpson pod, which you have recently put in. This Timpson pod would offer, shoe, watch and jewellery repairs, as well as key-cutting and dry cleaning, all services which we have firmly established by family businesses, for years on our High Street.

Putting a pod like that in place will decrease footfall in the town center and be a kick in the guts for small businesses on the High Street, my customers. If you take money from my customers, I don't have money to be your customer!

Do you get it now? Do you understand why your business is now failing too? Tesco, you are busy destroying the circular economy, when you could actually be responsible for making it stronger and healthier.

Think about it, giving more to your local community financially, not just with tin collection schemes that customers pay you for and then you donate to a local charity and make yourself look generous when you've added 30% of your own goods on top but by encouraging local businesses to thrive, by really teaming up with them and working together towards mutually beneficial ways of trading. Do that and then you will see Tesco thrive again.

So, Tesco, if you want to know the secret to true economic success, it is sustainability and sharing.'

Seeing as it's not very likely that the Chairman of Tesco will have a chat with me. I appeal to you, to please help me to stop Tesco's planning permission from going through.

Please join my Say No to Timpson at Tesco campaign, by clicking on the link below and signing the petition  it brings up and sharing with your friends too. Thank you.

Say NO to Timpson at Tesco!

You can also log an objection to the planning application, directly to Mendip Council, using this link:

Application Objections

Why I resigned from being on Shepton Mallet Town Council...

I have resigned from my position as an elected member of Shepton Mallet Town Council...because integrity is important to me.

I am PERSON, not a politician, which means I'll enjoy helping you and Shepton Mallet without being accused of doing it because I want to win an election!

The political tensions that are prevalent in Shepton Mallet Town Council, make me feel so distressed and uneasy, that I am unable to condone the operation of this town council, especially when issues such as Daniel White's job in Collett Park, have still not been properly resolved. Daniel's job is not a financial issue but an ethical and moral issue and I feel this aspect of consideration is being overlooked. I do not want to be a part of that.

There is a culture of bullying on the Town Council, where for instance our Town Clerk has been treated so appallingly and disrespectfully, that she had to take time off for work related stress. Not enough protection has been afforded to her from the aggressive comments being directed towards her. If I standby and do nothing, I might as well be one of the bullies.

The shambles of the Neighbourhood Plan has been controlled by one member of the Town Council in particular and is a perfect illustration of what is wrong. The objective of the plan is to listen to the people of the town and then enable them to express their wishes in a plan that would be accepted through a referendum. If the people of our town are not properly consulted, then this plan will not be voted for by the people. I cannot standby and support the short-sighted manner in which this plan has been handled.

Thank you to the Liberal Democrats who supported my campaign and many thanks to all the people, who voted for me by an overwhelming majority, even though I had only been in the town for just over 3 months. Your ongoing support and belief in me is amazing and I will continue to do my best for you, as an ethical, independent business woman in the town. I pledge that I will use my great sense of justice, my social media and communication skills and my vibrant personality, to help promote Shepton Mallet and to support the social causes that I believe in.

Most importantly, I'd like you to know that,

My ears are open to the wonderful people of this town, no matter of what political persuasion, I am ready to listen to you and help you, just as I was before being a councillor, when I was a councillor and now that I'm not a councillor!