Not available from a supermarket near you...

In the 1960's the UN FAO and the WHO laid plans to create a set of standards for food. This operation was given the name CODEX.
This standardisation would extend right down to the production of a single type of individual cheese. For example, were you to buy a chedder cheese in Somerset, it should be made in the same way as in Shanghai. CODEX meetings take place 4 times a year. Yet sitting at the table dealing with international cheese standards and representing the USA is Kraft Foods, one of the largest industrial cheese makers in the world and a company determinedly set on the road of universal pasteurisation. This approach to food standards is not consumer led and is almost wholly a matter of trade, politics and profits on behalf of governments and corporations.

The supermarkets tell us they are demand led. That may have been so in the early daysbut having now created the supermarket environment through monopolistic practices they now surely lead that demand. Quite simply, people buy what is available on the shelves.
When offering an explanation as to why te supemarkets set such stringent regulations for producers/suppliers, resulting, not only in considerable waste but also uniformity of product appearance on the shelf, Lord Haskins, former chairman of Northern Foods and Express Dairies and close advisor to PM Tony Blair said:
'Customers now shop with their eyes and not their mouth. They want food without a blemish because they assume it will taste better. The consumers are to blame but the supermarkets aid and abet them by encouraging such attitudes.' (Sunday Times July 17 '05).

Let us be clear. We consumers are not to blame. We will buy what is available. We are quite capable of making educated choices.

But if Haskins is correct and we are now buying with our eyes and not mouth, then what better endorsement do we need for buying on-line, relying on photographs and descriptions. With free and wide choice determining selection, we need not be stuck with products of uniform size, exaggerated shine and frequently diminished flavour.

Value may NOT always be measured by appreance and the supermarkets should beware of patronising the consumer or underestimating us as to our assumptions of taste.

Shopping for food should not be reduced to an exercise in bland uniformity, akin to completing a tax return. Merely filling a trolly with excessive packaging, to stand in a queue and win loyalty points in a store endlessly changing its shelving arrangments in a cynical exercise to confuse us so as to keep us longer, is not shopping. It is survival. Were this the best way to achieve value and quality we should be queuing behind TV chefs and hoteliers in our local supermarkets. We are not. They know better of course (despite some high profile celebrity endorsement) and use local suppliers - who provide better taste and value.