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Unpacking the Food we Eat...
review
Part of the appeal of the Brighton Fringe is the huge variety of different events on offer throughout the festival. Tonight at Brighton's gorgeous glass library the Institute of Development Studies put on a briefing to help highlight some of the issues surrounding the public penchant for the supermarket.
They presented some fairly well documented yet endlessly staggering statistics on the food industry... Tesco, the biggest supermarket chain in the UK, sells a third of all food bought in the UK. They pocket £1 in every £7 spent by consumers in the country. They earn an astronomical £2.5 billion in profits each year. This is our money, and it seems only right that we should want to know how this Goliath of the food industry operates.
With over 85% if all food bought in the UK coming from the four big supermarkets the suggestion is that we should be questioning the business practices that lead to the unbeatable prices to which we've now become accustomed. The low prices and pristine products are only possible through the extensive use of very, very cheap labour - and we were shown maps charting the movement of this fluid workforce around Europe.
For most food producers the supermarkets are their only customers and have absolute power to dictate prices, quantity, so called 'quality' and even the timing of harvest... supermarkets are seen to place huge demands on suppliers to provide products in time, for example, for a break in the weather... if it's due to be sunny in two days time then they know they're going to sell more lettuces - so that's when the orders are ramped up. If you can't meet demand then you're out of the game... or if you can't afford to offer two-for-one then they'll find someone who can.
Do we take our incredibly cheap supermarket food for granted? Probably. Can we afford to buy food that is produced fairly, paying a sensible wage to those involved in growing, picking and distributing it? Probably. Should we be questioning the supermarkets strong-arm approach to food production? Definitely.
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Brighton's ever-expanding Fringe Festival is fast becoming one of the biggest cultural festivals in the UK, rivalling even Edinburgh for its cultural diversity and the sheer volume of quality events on offer. Click for more info and complete listings for Brighton Festival Fringe 
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