The Tracing Paper

Inside a Fresh and Easy Store (photo Fresh and Easy)

The Guardian reports that Barack Obama has written to Sir Terry Leahy, Chief Executive of Tesco, to urge him to engage with the US trade union representing workers at Tesco’s new US venture, Fresh and Easy.

Without union engagement, the union claims that Fresh and Easy’s workers are stuck with no written contract of employment and working conditions that compare unfavourably with Tesco’s employees in Britain.

“Talk to us!”

The possible future US president’s intervention is a success for the United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW) union, which has been campaigning to encourage Tesco to talk to them. Despite Tesco’s strong relationship and partnership with USDAW, the British union representing 85,000 of its workers, they’ve so far reportedly refused all invitations to engage with UFCW.

Global standards or double standards?

Tesco assert that their workers are free to join the union and that they’ve “engaged with community leaders”, but it’s a far cry from their partnership with USDAW in Britain. Elsewhere, the trades union movement has raised questions about labour relations in some of Tesco’s other oversees operations, such as Tesco Lotus in Thailand.

UFCW has dubbed Tesco the “Wal-Mart of Britain”. It’s a confusing turn of phrase, as another British supermarket, Asda, is actually owned by Wal-Mart. And while Wal-Mart’s attitude towards unions is notoriously uncooperative (except in China), Asda, like Tesco, has a rather good relationship with British unions.

The different approaches taken by companies around the globe demonstrate the importance of labour laws and established workers’ rights. Britain is no longer a cushy environment for trades unions and their workers, but it’s a lot more comfortable than America and other countries.

Easy facts?

UFCW has teemed up with “grocery workers, food industry professionals” to create freshandeasyfacts.com, also known as freshandqueasy.com, to publicise their campaign against Tesco. Don’t bother trying these links to the Fresh and Easy Facts homepage from the UK. It’s blocked to UK-based browsers, presumably for legal reasons. Continue Reading »

Absence

Still from Our Daily Bread - spraying sunflowers

Loyal visitors to the Tracing Paper will have noticed a distinct lack of activity over most of the last year. I’m ashamed that I only just avoided a clear six month hiatus with a (very) brief post about the superb documentary on the modern food industry, Our Daily Bread. My only excuse is that this blog has had a lot of competition for my attention - not just a growing family but moving house and changes in my working life too.

Return

As I start to dip a toe back into the water of blog, it’s hard to know where to start. The last year has proved an especially long time in food, with the development of a global food crisis that was almost unforeseen a year ago. Continue Reading »

Our Daily Bread is a film about the modern food industry that’s been described as “The 2001: A Space Odyssey of modern food production”, despite its direct depiction of the truth behind the food we eat.

Shot without any commentary, director Nikolaus Geyrhalter told the Guardian he simply wanted his audience to reflect on the complicated truth behind our food. Following screenings at select cinemas since its UK release in January, the film is due to be shown on More4 at 10pm on Tuesday 29th April. (And should be available to watch online over the following week - sadly, Our Daily Bread was never available from Channel 4 online.)

Not a supermarket

Early reporting on today’s long awaited publication of the provisional findings of the Competition Commission’s 17-month (and counting) investigation into the groceries market gave the impression that the Commission (CC) had given the major mulitiple retailers a clean bill. “Competition inquiry to reprieve supermarkets” pronounced the FT.

There is real criticism of supermarket practices in the CC’s provisional findings, with suggested remedies that might just tackle some of the problems. But the CC also suggests changes to the planning system which would be nothing less than a bonanza for the larger retailers and spell further disaster for town centres and the small independent operators.

Uncompetitive Features

Read the report and you’ll find the CC stating clearly that “there is an adverse effect on competition”, identifying a number of uncompetitive “features” (a sanitised expression for damaging practices) of the market:

• “A significant number of local markets have high levels of concentration, and these high levels of concentration have persisted over a number of years”
  ie there are “Tesco Towns” (and Sainsbury suburbs etc) whose inhabitants suffer from a lack of choice of food shops
• “The control of land in highly-concentrated local markets by incumbent retailers acts as a barrier to entry”
  ie the supermarkets are in possession of landbanks that restrict the development of competing stores
• “the exercise of buyer power [...] through the adoption of supply chain practices that transfer excessive risks and unexpected costs to [...] suppliers [...] prevents, restricts or distorts competition”

ie the supermarkets do treat some of their suppliers unfairly

These are strong criticisms and bear out accusations that the supermarkets have repeatedly denied. Continue Reading »

Just when it all seemed to be mercifully over, foot and mouth disease has returned in the UK.

The government had declared August’s outbreak over, the restrictions on livestock movements were lifted, farming and the meat industry were getting back to normal business at a busy time of year, the reports on August’s outbreak had been even published. Now all the fear and uncertainty is back.

Debate about whether it’s time to vaccinate is intensifying. Many consider vaccination long overdue and point to the new outbreak as tragic evidence. The case is presented convincingly at Warmwell, where it’s also reported that the government is considering vaccination.

Defra, for the time being at least, remains opposed to vaccination on the grounds of the risk of spread of the disease and the impact on trade in meat, though they have ordered 300,000 doses.

Keeping up with foot and mouth developments

Warmwell remains the best source of in-depth discussion and examination of foot and mouth disease, the arguments for vaccination, the impact on farmers and more.

Defra has a page on the latest situation, with links to detailed pages on the restrictions etc.

The Guardian’s Newsblog has regularly updated postings of events as they happen(ed) and views as they’re aired on the 13th September, 12th September. Matthew Weaver combines concise reporting of the facts as they emerge with discussion of postings on blogs and even FaceBook groups.

Finally, I’ve posted a constantly updated summary of blog postings about foot and mouth at FeedReel.

FeedReel - finest quality food and drink writing on the web

The Tracing Paper has been a little neglected recently as I’ve been concentrating on developing a new site, FeedReel on Food and Drink, exploring the range of food and drink writing on the web.

Earlier posts here (particulary the UK Food Blog Search) have touched on this, but it’s really a subject that goes beyond The Tracing Paper’s professed interest in the origins of our food (on which more will follow soon, honest).

For anyone with an interest in food and drink (isn’t that everyone?), the web is an increasingly exciting source of ideas, stimulation and information.

Every day, over 30 fresh articles are posted on over 100 UK food blogs, with over a dozen more on 20-odd UK beer, wine and cider blogs. Numerous specialist websites are constantly adding new content and much of the old mainstream media’s writing on food is also available online.

The only problem is keeping up. It’s all too easy to miss an article on your favourite food and all too difficult tracking down the best information when you’re looking for a particular recipe or the low-down on a restaurant.

This is where FeedReel hopes to help, keeping a close eye on all the latest posts on UK food blogs and websites, collating constantly updated summaries of the latest food and drink writing and news.

And if you’re looking for something specific, FeedReel offers a thorough Food Search, indexing over 200 carefully chosen UK food blogs and websites.

I’ve been tagged for the Fantastic Four blog meme by Richard at superfood. The idea is simply to provide four answers to each of five questions, and to tag four bloggers to continue the meme.

This meme is floating free of its source, but Richard was tagged by Trig, who was tagged by Scott at Real Epicurean … ifantabulous … hishgraphics … Planet Kambling … Hijack Queen … Simple America … It’s now spreading amongst UK food bloggers.

So here are my answers, mostly food related and with a few extra food connections (this is a food blog, after all):

4 jobs I’ve had

Goatherd
Organic veg box packer
Mushroom picker
Tour guide - an opportunity for good lunches all over Italy

4 places I’ve lived

Eye (Suffolk, England) - where Laurels Farm Butchers is shortlisted for the Best Butcher category in the 2007 Suffolk Food Awards
East Harling (Norfolk, England) - which also has a superb butcher, FL Edge & Sons, and the wonderful Jan’s Fruit & Veg
Esanatoglia (Le Marche, Italy) - where I first learned to identify wild mushrooms
Dolgellau (Gwynedd, Wales) - where I was temporarily distracted from food by rhododendrons

4 places I’ve holidayed

Loch Lomond (Scotland) - including a wonderful lunch at Monachyle Mhor, somewhere in the distance in the photo above
Continue Reading »

The re-emergence of foot and mouth disease in the UK last Friday is a tragedy, most of all for the blameless farmers who have seen their livestock struck down, but also for livestock farmers across the country; the meat trade, from hauliers and abattoirs to butchers and pie-makers; rural tourism businesses; and everyone who enjoys good British meat (eg Superfood) or simply cares about the farmed landscape. Much of our most cherished countryside, from heaths and moorland to valley pasture and ancient grassland, has been shaped by livestock and depends on regular grazing.

Just 5 days in from the first outbreak, it’s far too early to guess how the epidemic (it’s officially an epidemic once there’s more than one outbreak) will unfold this time, but there is at least cause for hope: DEFRA appears to be handling the situation far better than MAFF managed in 2001; a likely source of infection has been identified; and there have only been 2 localised outbreaks - 6 had been identified at the same stage in 2001, with suspected cases reported from Devon to Northumberland.

The mainstream media are following developments closely, but there’s no better source of comprehensive information and informed comment on FMD than Warmwell.com, an independent website established by Mary Critchley early in the 2001 epidemic. The variety of information collated by Warmwell ranges from scientific reports to personal accounts of what’s really happening on farms. The site has been updated, apparently daily, since 2001 and has extended its interests to cover a wide range of farming and animal health issues.

For a grisly reminder of the last epidemic, Warmwell has an archived transcript of Muckspreader’s Not the Foot and Mouth Report for Private Eye, still the best accessible account of the events and mistakes of 2001.