Going Supermarket Free - By Wendy Steindl (Owner of Healthy, Clean & Green, Self-titled Environmental Activist)
While there is no doubt that supermarkets offer consumers convenience, that convenience comes at a cost… to farmers, local communities and the environment.
The two biggest supermarkets in Australia; Woolworths and Coles, have a massive 80% market share on ALL grocery items purchased by Australian consumers! And between them, Woolworths Inc and Westfarmers (Coles) own lots of the big name businesses we know, including Bunnings, K.Mart, Officeworks, Big W, BWS, Dan Murphy’s and a number of service stations. Wow!
As a self-titled environmental activist, I avoid the supermarkets as much as possible. The only things I regularly buy from the supermarket these days are butter, Weet-Bix, milo and soft-drink (as a mixer for hubby’s bourbon and my occasional vodka!) Here’s why:
So much unnecessary packaging which makes the product more expensive. While lots of packaging is now considered ‘recyclable’ the truth is that a very high percentage of it ends up in landfill.
High food miles leave a high carbon footprint. From plough to plate, ‘food miles’ relate to the distance food travels from the point of growth or production to consumption. Some products travel hundreds, even thousands of kilometres before they eventually end up on your plate.
Supermarket food is old and heavily processed. It takes time for a product to travel those ‘food miles’ It doesn’t take a genius to figure out that an orange or grape originating from the USA, that is on a supermarket shelf in Mackay, wasn’t picked yesterday! To keep it ‘good’ things in jars are filled with preservatives and produce is sprayed with chemicals.
Shopping at a supermarket hurts the local economy and supports a conglomerate business where the people at the top are the only real beneficiaries. These people don’t live in our towns, heck, sometimes they don’t even live in our country!
Ok, admit it, who’s still stuck on the line... “The only things I regularly buy from the supermarket these days are butter, Weet-Bix, milo and soft-drink”?
So how do I do it? I shop at the farmers markets, local bulk food store, butcher, bakery and independent local retailers. With a little bit of forward planning and organisation I’m making better choices for the environment, supporting the local economy, eating healthier, eating fresher and ultimately saving money.
FRUIT & VEGETABLES
In Australia, grapes don’t grow naturally well in the middle of winter, but oranges do, so in the past people would eat seasonally. These days however, demand to have everything available to us all year round means forcing artificial production through chemical and energy intensive processes or importing produce from other countries, both which sacrifice nutrient content, flavour and freshness. Switching back to eating seasonally is better for the planet, for our overall health, for our farmers and the local economy. I get my fruit and vegetables from the Greater Whitsunday Farmers Market. Granted it won’t always look the way it does in a supermarket, due to the supermarkets selection process and preserving sprays but you can guarantee that the produce from the farmers market is in season and is the freshest and tastiest you will find. I have spoken to stall holders who have been out picking their produce just hours before I’m purchasing it!
Other options for fruit and vegetables are the Showground Markets or Vegies Unlimited, an independent local store known for stocking as much local produce as possible.
MEAT, CHICKEN & FISH
I get my beef and pork products from Freckle Farm. I’m super impressed with their farming practices and they happily cater to my desire to reduce the use of plastic and excess waste so even though they have a stall at the Greater Whitsunday Farmers Market, I shop from their permanent store. I drop containers in and place my order one day and then pick up the next!
Other options for meat in our region are Note Park Grazing, Cloudbreak Lowlines Cattle & Eungella Beef, Pretty Pig Farm and many of the independent butchers. (Please note that I’m not saying these businesses wouldn’t pack into my containers or that they don’t have good farming practices... I just haven’t discussed this with them because Freckle Farm is the most convenient for me.)
Big chicken eaters, we frequent Lenard’s Chicken. While the food miles of the chicken are higher than I would like, I don’t know of anybody processing chicken in the region and I’m really not prepared to do it myself! The stores in Mackay are locally owned and they let me use my own containers.
We very rarely cook fish at home but when we do, we get it from Debbie’s Seafood, purely because hubby drives past her van on the way home from work, so it’s a convenience thing.
Other options for seafood are Shores Seafood or you could catch it. I’m not a fisherman, but I believe there are plenty of good spots in and around the Mackay region to catch yourself a good feed!
PANTRY STAPLES, EGGS, MILK & BREAD
Locally owned, the Soul Food Market is Mackay’s bulk food store and is where I choose to buy my staples because I can shop package free. I get tea leaves, rice, pasta, flour, sugar, oats, sultanas, popcorn, olive oil, nuts, eggs, milk and so much more from here! (The eggs are from Freckle Farm, but I pick them up here because I can get them carton free)
For honey I stop at Pure n Natural Honey because they sell it in glass and for fresh pasta, jams, chutneys and sauces I visit Pasta Cucina and Retrospect Life. Taste aside, I love the fact that they take back the jars and bottles for reuse. These three businesses attend the Greater Whitsunday Farmers Markets.
Bread I get from Walkerston Bakery. The closest bakery to me, it’s convenient and they let me take my own cloth bread bag. I always have good intentions of getting up early and walking to the bakery, but I confess, this hasn’t actually ever happened yet!
Other local options for milk, honey and sauces are Eungelladale Milk, Whitsunday Dairy Fresh, Bee2U, Cannonbee and One Hungry Mumma
HOUSEHOLD ITEMS
I mentioned earlier that I’m a self-titled environmental activist so for bathroom, kitchen and laundry items including shampoo, combs, brushes, soap, compostable band aids, cotton buds, tissues and toothbrushes, toilet paper, compostable dish clothes and kitchen scrubbers, glad wrap alternatives, food containers, paper towel and pegs I shop from my own business Healthy Clean and Green, which is also a stallholder at the Greater Whitsunday Farmers Market.
I make my own laundry powder, hand soap, dishwasher powder and toothpaste and source the ingredients for these from the Soul Food Market. If making isn’t an option for you the Soul Food Market stocks all these things or you can pick most of them up from several markets around the region!
It might sound like I’m running around all over town but really, it takes me no more time than shopping for it all at the supermarket would! Usually my shopping day is Wednesday. Markets first, (because I’m there with my stall anyway) then Soul Food Market, Lenard’s Chicken, Freckles Farm Butcher and then home!
While this routine and these places work for me because they align with my values, allow me to shop package free or are purely convenient they might not be right for you. I mean, obviously if you live in Blacks Beach, you wouldn’t purchase your bread from the Walkerston Bakery!
I mentioned a lot of local, family owned businesses, but that’s not all of them. Look around, discover your options (and by that, I mean location and taste) and work out what works for you. That might mean the Saturday morning markets or popping into the bulk food store during your lunch hour, phoning an order through to your local butcher and getting your partner to pick it up on the way home from work or picking up your bread on your morning walk past the local bakery (yeah, I’m still imagining that I do that!). Give it a try and you’ll find it’s really not that hard or inconvenient.
And let’s be honest… if you stopped shopping at Woolworths or Coles tomorrow, they wouldn’t even notice. But if you start shopping with small, local, independent businesses, you’ll be supporting the local economy, eating fresher and better, saving money, building community relationships and depending on how you do it, you may just even be helping to save the planet!