Shop Small (Buy local, Switch from the Supermarket)
If you do a lot of online ordering from multinational books or CD suppliers etc, see if there’s an alternative local supplier you can order from. Buy online and then call to collect, and while you’re collecting chat to the staff.
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GB , 18 Aug 2005
I am trying to shop less and in a smaller way. this also ties into my efforts to avoid as much as i can supermarkets I have just returned from a lovely break in Mull. one of the things i liked was being able to buy fresh veg each day from a neighbour.
24 Aug 2005
I think it was me who initiated this one, originally. It came from my discovery that my local radical bookshop News From Nowhere had started up an online ordering service, for any book in print. A book addict I was really pleased to transfer my online buying habits to NfN, especially when I discovered that one of their purchasing options is ‘Pay on Collection from the Shop’. So not only am I supporting their business, I’m getting to know the staff now too. Which is nice.
The NfN site is hosted by The Book Partnership who offer all sorts of useful online services to independent booksellers; so if you are one, or know one, you might like to see what they can do to support the small shopkeeper.
taunton, GB , 30 Aug 2005
I never thought i’d become one of those weirdos who never shop at supermarkets… but i have joined the club!
for about a year now I’ve not done my weekly trip to Tescos, and have shopped locally (or online: traidcraft/goodness direct)
i do go to co-op v occassionally tho
i think living in somerset helps! (lots of local cider…!)
01 Oct 2005
i brought a propper granny shopping trolley this time last year. and can count the number of times i’ve been to a super market since then. i moved to where i live now because its near a good market, and when i next move, it will have to be to somewhere with an even better one. www.portobelly.blogspot.com
07 Nov 2005
Shane and I tend to use our local shops, fruit veg and fish shop (fish brought into our local harbour), butchers (pigs reared by the owner and free-range in the fields we can see), bakers and post office. We tend to buy milk and butter from a local dairy and local cheeses too. We are lucky that our area, Cornwall, it allows us to do this. We will also try to buy at famers makets or from friend who are farmers. We even buy our pet food from the local pet shop or the garden centre which stocks James Wellbeloved. We do have to occasional have to go to the supermarket to get some food that my cat eats and products that we cannot find it elsewhere. Then we try to use Waitrose or one of the smaller chains. The Good Shopping Guide helps us in the matter of the ethics of a product or shop. We also shop in the Traidcraft shop when we go down to Truro to buy sugar and biscuits.
Midhurst, GB , 08 Nov 2005
Hooray! A local group have just started distributing vegetables grown locally so now I can get seasonal produce from the nearby farms instead of from Riverford Organics – I loved their fab fresh veg but it is grown in Devon and transported all this way!
11 Nov 2005
Choose your books from Amazon, print of the list, with prices, and take them to your local bookseller – ours does her best to match the prices and get the books for us.
22 Dec 2005
We’re trying to never ever shop IN a supermarket. Unsuccessfuly so far.
We order organically and have it delivered and for our supermarket shop (if we must)we do it online and as far as possible order only Fairtrade.
04 Jan 2006
Yay for our fortnightly food club! Yay for the market! Yay for the butchers! Shame on me for still using supermarkets. At least we only tend to use them once a month. Is that good enough?!
Stroud, GB , 20 Mar 2006
Really struggling with this one…My instinct is “go for it” but my family claim that we “need” assorted things which we can only find at the dreaded T**. The question is how far it is fair to push my personal agenda and run the risk of putting them off even trying to be generous on this front. A recent discussion ended with “life’s too short to fuss that much”...I guess it’ll be even shorter if we don’t begin to be a tad more responsible. Frustrated grrrrrrr
21 Mar 2006
We’re having a good go at this one. The local market, small online co-ops and the bookshop in the town are all helping.
Sometimes W* is still used, but sparingly.
Leicester, GB , 04 Apr 2006
If you want to be charitable in your on-line shopping, you could try www.UshopUgive.com It has lots of big names but gives 50% of the commission to named charities – you can select which one you want to give it to. They hope to increase the proportion given to charity to 80%.
06 Apr 2006
Always looking to see what I can do for my local community. Currently I buy my petrol at the local garage and get my car serviced there.
23 Apr 2006
I am really enjoying not having to visit large supermarkets…however it is usefull having a local coop and good greengrocers near us. Still trying to get the coop to stock goods such as Redbush teabags so I can save petrol and shopping trips further afield.
09 May 2006
being a large family it’s hard to imagine doing without the supermarket delivery, but we’re aiming for a gradual transfer …the plan is to cut down the frequency of deliveries, (initially to 3 weeks out of 4 instead of every week),and to change to ‘local’ a bit at a time.
taunton, GB , 23 May 2006
If you live in Somerset, try: Somerset Local Food Direct (see their website). You can choose what you want (meat, diary, fruit, veg, etc) and have it delivered… rather than be stuck with a box of random veg, some of which you don’t really want! I’ve been using them for a good year or more now, and they are cool!
25 May 2006
This is something I’m really trying to do. I do use the farmers market when it appears in Cheltenham (once a month), we stop at any farm stores that pass when we’re out and about, for things like washing up liquid, lemon juice, white vinager etc I use The Natural Grocery Store. I find it hard to get local & organic in one place, although I am starting to grow my own, any other suggestions? Cheltenham has got 2 fab second hand bookshops as well as the Oxfam one so we’re lucky with that. I don’t buy DVDs or videos I rent them from Les atTop Video on Prestbury Road – he’s ace & a fountain of film knowledge.
28 Jun 2006
Don’t know why but have only recntly realised that all supermarkets are of the devil ! Anyway have discovered lovely organic food shop down the road and am giving them my trade now.I have restarted getting an organic box delivered and its just great- Riverford. THey seem like people who are trying to swim against the tide and quite successfully too
02 Jul 2006
I had to go into a supermarket recently – first time in months – and it was awful!
I suppose their regular victims (oops, customers)just get used to the retailers’ assault on the senses – dazzling lights, oppresive/misleading advertising at every turn, the feeling that you – and the other paid and paying inmates – are just cogs in their over-consumption machine.
All in all, not a pleasant experience and one I’m keen to avoid again.
Local shops, farmers market, Sesame Organics deliveries …. it’s good to know the name of the people you re shopping with.
16 Aug 2006
We’ve just started a local delivery service using mostly small scale producers, processors and retail shops to stock our food. We found it incredibly difficult to shop locally when working full-time with out online and home delivery facilities. We now deliver around the country and can say it’s a growing success with more and more people wanting to support their local shops. Our suppliers are able to say they now do online deliveries too.
16 Aug 2006
PS Forgot to say that if you’re interested in our Devon local food produced by small scale micro businesses (mainly), email dionne@thelocalfoodcompany.co.uk
Lancaster, GB , 30 Sep 2006
This one is so much fun !
We get our veggies delivered by a local box scheme, milk delivered by the milkman, buy our newspapers at the local newsagents who also sell reasonably priced free range eggs (shame on the supermarkets putting a premium price tag on them!), the local butcher’s sausages beat any supermarket and they don’t shrink to half the size when cooked, we can get local honey and local poultry, I use the local village store which is a Co-op so I can get fair trade goodies there; I’ve discovered all sorts of shops in my nearest town… once you get talking to folk you discover all manner of other local businesses…
Who wants supermarkets ? Not me ! I want to CHOOSE what I buy, not be dictated to; and I want to know I’m not starving some poor farmer out of business by demanding ridiculously low prices. Somehow with this new way of buying the food bill has remained much the same. Why is that ? I’m not buying all those ‘tempting’ things in the supermarket, and I’m certainly not wasting anything I’ve paid more for – so in the end it’s better value for money and my health has improved too. Who could ask for more ?
09 Apr 2007
we’re waking up to the need to think beyond the supermarket shop…(as in the heading for this action- see above-). we’re now resolving to buy from our local bookshop, who will order for us whatever we’ve seen on amazon or wherever, if they don’t already stock it. it may take a day or two longer, and last time they did have to charge us p&p, but it was half would have been had i ordered online. and well worth it for the friendly human contact. if you can’t email them you can always phone, so you only have to drop in once.
29 Jun 2007
For anyone living in East Devon, there is a very good wholefood shop in Ottery St. Mary – they do refills of Ecover products, and a really rather impressive range of nice things to eat.
Also, there is a very good butchers in Exeter, on Magdalene Road – Pipers Farm (http://www.pipersfarm.com/zen-cart/index.php?main_page=index). Quite pricey, but good if you fancy a treat.
Kingston upon Thames, GB , 01 Aug 2007
We spend a small fortune at our local independent health food shop and I make an effort to only buy things like newspapers, magazines etc from corner shops not WHSmith. We frequent our local deli/cafes and always choose small independent businesses over chains/multinationals if we can. Clothes come from small fairtrade retailers or we buy second hand from charity shops.
Nottingham, GB , 05 Dec 2007
I avoid shopping at Tesc-Satan-Co, As-Beelzebub-Da or Sains-Nearly-As-Evil-Burys as much as possible.