Do you like diced carrots?
Clearly they'd been on offer at Booker wholesale, as had
peach coloured toilet rolls, long life jam Swiss rolls and fly-paper. Luckily
the inside of the store was so chaotic you only realise the full horror of
their stocking decisions when you enter and walk around. I particularly liked
the nets of kindling, conveniently high up on a shelf next to some dog biscuits.
I guess kindling sells well in April, if that is you still do your weekly wash
over a coal fired copper in the back shed.
But rural England
is different now. Of course many old folk still relish their weekly treat of a
tin of red salmon, a hard boiled egg and some lettuce. But the folk with busy
lives, well filled purses whose spending could make a difference will find
little to attract them here. Instead they drive six miles to the supermarket.
I was unlucky to chance upon one of the very few dodgy
community owned shops. The Plunkett Foundation do an excellent job of helping
them start and thrive. They say that only ten have ever failed out of almost
300 created. That's an impressive performance, which makes my recent sad
experience all the more frustrating.
Luckily the nice middle class people who'd got the project
going are about to flex their muscles. Having delegated the management of their
venture to an ‘expert' they're now seeing that common sense might be a better
bet. They're going to ask locals what they want to see in the shop, give it a
good makeover and start again.
Local food, local produce and local booze needs to take
priority over the over-priced under-quality tat you find in the average Cash
and Carry. Yes, you need to cater for all tastes, but you also need to
recognise that people do have taste. Canned carrots are not an everyday
essential so why not focus on bread, milk and eggs instead?
We're going to see a lot more community shops created over
the coming years. Plunkett expect the number of new openings to exceed 40 this
year alone. So where's the supply chain to make them different, profitable and
appealing to local shoppers? Why are there no producer cooperatives knocking on
their doors, offering to work with them to create success for both sectors?
We all complain about the lack of ‘joined up' thinking in
Government, but let's get things right at grassroots level too!