Tesco post record profits
Keith Parkins | 02.05.2006 15:08 | Analysis | Ecology | Globalisation | London
'Local shops are being put of business on a daily basis because of the growing power of supermarkets. Popping to your local shop for a pint of milk will no longer be an option unless more shoppers change the way they shop. If we all Shop Local First, then we can help save our local shops, boost the local economy and also help do our bit to tackle climate change.' -- Sandra Bell, FoE
'... FARM, amongst others, attended the Tesco AGM to challenge the board on its failure to pay a fair price to producers. Sadly Tesco has ignored our representations and chosen to ignore the plight of its farmers and growers' -- Peter Lundgren, founding member of FARM
'Every time I loaded [Tesco frozen chicken] at the producer in central Europe, the truck was overloaded. My truck was soon five tonnes over its 40-tonne [gross weight]...a normal load was 20 tonnes, so effectively Tesco got one free load every four loads that were carried.' -- Kevin Harrison, former Tesco lorry driver
Last week Tesco posted record profits of £2.25 billion, up 17% on last year.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/4941236.stm
The question that has to be asked at what cost? Who was screwed to generate the massive profits?
It is not only the producers, farmers and suppliers and small shopkeepers who are being screwed, High Street chains are now suffering.
BBC 1 news, on the day the results were posted (Tuesday 25 April 2006), compared several sectors – toiletries, books, electrical goods, sports clothes. For each sector, Tesco had recorded growth well in excess of 20%, the corresponding High Street chains – Boots, Waterstones, Dixons, JB Sports – showed either a small increase of a couple of a percent, or a decrease of several percent.
Town after town is suffering from the presence of Tesco and other supermarket chains.
A Tesco superstore opened on the outskirts of Aldershot. The store, the gutting of the heart of the town for a shopping mall, and incompetent local councillors, have all but destroyed Aldershot town centre.
http://www.heureka.clara.net/surrey-hants/ald-shot.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aldershot
In Farnborough, the local council has colluded with KPI (a Kuwaiti-financed front-company of St Modwen) to destroy half the town centre for a Sainsbury's superstore. Social housing of 28 maisonettes to be destroyed for a car park for the superstore, the tenants to be kicked out of their homes.
http://www.heureka.clara.net/surrey-hants/farnboro.htm
In Upton Park in the East End of London, the local mayor is colluding with St Modwen to destroy the century-old Queen's Market to make way for an Asda superstore. Over 12,000 people have signed a petition opposing the destruction, only to be rubbished by the mayor.
http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2005/04/308927.html
http://www.friendsofqueensmarket.org.uk/
Queen's Market and Green Street (the main thoroughfare through Upton Park) offer real choice. If the experience of everywhere else is to be our guide, that choice would not last long, were a superstore to be built on the site of Queen's Market.
In Guildford, the Council gave the go-ahead to Tesco to operate 24 hours a day, even though they knew it would make life a misery for local residents. The councillors did though have the honesty to admit privately that they had little choice, even though they were none too happy. Tesco would have gone to appeal and bankrupted the council to get their way. The council simply could not afford to fight Tesco.
http://www.heureka.clara.net/surrey-hants/gu-ford.htm
All the more remarkable therefore that the council at Shrewsbury in Shropshire has refused Tesco planning permission to build a superstore on the old cattle market. The Council may though have problems as Tesco has already been granted outline permission, the argument is thus about the details. The Council should have said no at the outset.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/shropshire/4948112.stm
We are suffering a deterioration and bastardisation of the food chain.
Buy fresh produce off a farmers market or from a vegetable box scheme, or even a local market, and it is unlikely to be more than 24 to 48 hours old. Buy from a supermarket and it will be several days old. The produce direct from the farmer will have travelled a few dozen miles at most. That from the supermarket will have travelled several hundred miles, and to make matters worse, most probably will have been airfreighted into the country. Produce from farm gate to table is selected for season, for taste. Produce destined for the supermarket shelf is selected for handling quality and shelf life.
To counter growing criticism, Tesco have declared they are going green.
A Tesco superstore in the Norfolk market town of Aylsham is to be built of recycled materials, it will use wind power to power the tills. This 'green' store will involve the demolition and re-siting of a historic barn.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/norfolk/4942228.stm
This is a bit like BP claiming to be green because they have got a new logo and have a few solar panels on the forecourt to power the pumps.
Each Tesco superstore will continue to be a massive traffic generator, their lorries will continue to pound up and down our roads, fresh produce will continue to be airfreighted from around the world, manufactured goods will continue to be shipped in from sweatshops in the world's poorest countries, and the waste mountain will continue to grow.
Between them the UK's biggest supermarkets distribute some 15 billion plastic bags which end up in landfill.
Tesco has refused to join the only industry initiative to clean up supplies of palm oil - despite the threat posed to the survival of the orang-utan from the rapidly expanding palm oil industry.
Tesco is contributing to deforestation through its reliance on palm oil, a cheap vegetable oil found in more than 1,000 products that the store sells. Palm oil plantations are now the major cause of rainforest clearance in Indonesia and Malaysia, threatening some of the world's richest wildlife forests and endangering native species including the orang-utan. Tesco has failed to sign up to minimum standards for palm oil production or join a roundtable on sustainability in palm oil.
Tesco's new 'Extras' stores, hypermarkets, are extremely inefficient in terms of energy use. A survey by Sheffield Hallam University found that large superstores are the most energy inefficient buildings in the retail/light industrial sector, despite the relatively new building stock. Taking into account the average size of buildings, the amount of climate changing emissions from superstores compares very badly to those of other food businesses, emitting three times more carbon dioxide than a greengrocers, per square foot.
It would take more than 60 greengrocers to match the carbon dioxide emissions from a single average superstore.
Research for DEFRA suggests that car use for food shopping results in costs to society of more than £3.5 billion per year from traffic emissions, noise, accidents and congestion.
Tesco's centralised distribution system means food travels around the country before ending up on the store shelves. A report for the Liberal Democrats found that the lorries of the nine major supermarkets travel a total of 670 million miles per year, equivalent to nearly four return trips to the moon every day.
Tesco imports food over vast distances - as the UK's market leader Tesco is responsible for a significant amount of the food imported into the country. In the 3 years up to 2002, food freight (by value) increased by 47% - the vast majority of which was shipped in dedicated freight planes.
In Fleet in north-east Hampshire a massive distribution depot alongside Farnborough Airport is planned. It will be Europe's largest warehouse, larger than 17 football pitches. It will generate 1,500 lorry movements a day. Tesco has so far refused to confirm or deny it is their depot.
The depot has so far attracted over 1,000 objections. Plans to double the number of weekend business flights at Farnborough Airport has generated over 3,000 objections.
Tesco has 30% of supermarket sales.
Tesco: Every little hurts!
Web
http://www.tescopoly.org/
http://www.friendsofqueensmarket.org.uk/
http://www.neweconomics.org/
http://www.corporatewatch.org.uk/
http://www.foe.co.uk/
http://www.farmersmarkets.net/
http://www.theecologist.org/boxscheme
http://www.farm.org.uk/
Reference
Battle in store? A discussion of the social impacts of the major supermarkets, Sustain, 2000
Joanna Blythman, Shopped: The Shocking Power of British Supermarkets, Fourth Estate, 2004
Lester R Brown, Plan B 2.0, Norton, 2006
Calling the shots: How supermarkets get their way in planning decisions, FoE, January 2006
Molly Conisbee et al, Clone Town Britain: The loss of local identity on the nation’s high streets, New Economics Foundation, September 2004
Nigel Dowdney, superstore kills town centre, letters, The Mail on Sunday, 3 October 2004
The Ecologist, September 2004 {special edition on damaging impact of supermarkets}
The Economic Impact of Locally Owned Businesses vs. Chains: a case study in midcoast Maine, Institute for Local Self Reliance, September 2003
Jenny Edwards, Taming Tesco, Ethical Consumer, September/October 2004
Every Little Hurts: Why Tesco needs to be tamed, MP's briefing, FoE, June 2004
Corinna Hawkes and Jacqui Webster, How supermarkets destroy jobs, Corporate Watch journal, Spring 2000
High Street Britain: 2015, All Party Parliamentary Small Shops Group, House of Commons, 2006
The Impact of Large Foodstores on Market Towns and City Centres, DETR, October 1998
Keep it local and save our small shops, press release, FoE, 28 April 2006
Felicity Lawrence, Not on the Label, Penguin, 2004
Caroline Lucas and Colin Hines, Stopping The Great Food Swap - Relocalising Europe's Food Supply, The Green Party, 2001
S L Martin, Sad to see town centre's decline, letters, Aldershot News, 21 April 2006
Meeting considers plan for Europe's biggest warehouse, Farnborough Mail, 25 April 2006
Lucy Michaels (Ed), What's Wrong With Supermarkets (4th ed), Corporate Watch, April 2004
Andrew Milford, Calls for action over decline of town centre, Aldershot News, 7 April 2006
George Monbiot, High street chains of woe: The superstores have all but destroyed the food economy, The Guardian, 12 October 2000
George Monbiot, Buying up Britain, The Ecologist, November 2000
George Monbiot, Brecon Reckoning, The Ecologist, December 2000/January 2001
George Monbiot, 'Sins of the Superstores Visited on Us', The Guardian 1 March 2001
Keith Parkins, Localisation: A Move Away From Globalisation, November 2000
http://www.heureka.clara.net/gaia/local.htm
Keith Parkins, Trashing of Farnborough Town Centre, November 2002
http://www.heureka.clara.net/surrey-hants/kpi.htm
Keith Parkins, Sell out of Farnborough town centre, Indymedia UK, 5 June 2004
http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2004/06/292803.html
Keith Parkins, Delivering the final death blow to Farnborough town centre, Indymedia UK, 2 July 2004
http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2004/07/294293.html
Keith Parkins, Redevelopment of Farnborough town centre, July 2004
http://www.heureka.clara.net/surrey-hants/kpi-june2004.htm
Keith Parkins, Sowing Seeds of Dissent, Indymedia UK, 6 September 2004
http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2004/09/297391.html
Keith Parkins, Seeds of Dissent, September 2004
http://www.heureka.clara.net/gaia/seeds.htm
Keith Parkins, Redevelopment of Farnborough town centre, October 2004
http://www.heureka.clara.net/surrey-hants/kpi-october2004.htm
Keith Parkins, Queens Market, Indymedia UK, 11 April 2005
http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2005/04/308927.html
Keith Parkins, Seedy Sunday Brighton 2006, Indymedia UK, 13 February 2006
http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2006/02/333573.html
Keith Parkins, Curitiba – Designing a sustainable city, Biotech Indymedia, 5 April 2006
http://biotech.indymedia.org/or/2006/04/5036.shtml
Keith Parkins, Stench of hypocrisy, Indymedia UK, 8 April 2006
http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2006/04/337854.html
Keith Parkins, Farnborough town centre – highway closures, Indymedia UK, 20 April 2006
http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2006/04/338621.html?c=on
Paying for Tesco's Profits, press release, FoE, 24 April 2006
Jen Rivett, Another store set to close, Aldershot News, 14 April 2006
Andrew Simms et al, Ghost Town Britain, New Economics Foundation, 2002
Andrew Simms et al, Ghost Town Britain II, New Economics Foundation, 2003
WH Smith plunges to record loss, BBC News on-line, 14 October 2004
Mike Stones, Food Hero: Guy Watson, Green Pages, The Ecologist, April 2006
Super markets or corporate bullies, FoE, February 2004
Tesco - the new green chameleon?, press release, FoE, 24 April 2006
Tesco deal loss hits Dairy Crest, BBC News on-line, 27 August 2004
Tesco makes bumper £2.25bn profit, BBC News on-line, 25 April 2006
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/4941236.stm
Tesco price cuts to target Boots, BBC News on-line, 4 January 2004
The Tesco Takeover, FoE, June 2005
Tesco told to rethink new store, BBC News on-line, 26 April 2006
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/shropshire/4948112.stm
Town to have new 'greenest' store, BBC News on-line, 25 April 2006
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/norfolk/4942228.stm
A warehouse the size of 17 football pitches, Farnborough News, 21 April 2006
Keith Parkins
Homepage:
http://www.heureka.clara.net/gaia