Diverse range of local shops offering local sourced produce

Local shops are much more likely to reflect the character of the local community than a big supermarket. Whether it’s a village shop selling local eggs, a butcher in a market town selling sausages made from local meat produced to its own recipe, or a neighbourhood shop in a city selling foods traditional to the cultures that live there, local shops represent genuine diversity. This diversity provides more choice to shoppers than having an Asda, Sainsbury’s and a Tesco in the same town.

Birmingham Friends of the Earth believe that to provide a real alternative to the supermarkets we need to ensure that we, shoppers have access to vibrant town centres with a diversity of shops. We need corner shops in urban areas and village shops in rural areas – not owned by supermarkets – where people can do ‘top-up’ shopping. We need thriving street markets selling fresh fruit and vegetables, and admittedly we probably need some smaller scale supermarkets where people can do their weekly food shop.

We want all kinds of smaller chains and independent shops can stay in business – from the specialist cheese shop to your local corner shop. Supermarkets have set their sites on taking over convenience stores– we think there’s a big potential for these kinds of shops to bring local food to more people – so its important to help them stay independent. It can be a bit confusing to work out just how independent your local corner shop is.

How independent is your convenience store?

Stores which carry well known fascias such as SPAR and Londis are independently owned but affiliated with a particular brand. By joining a franchise group (also known as a symbol group) shop owners benefit from increased buying power, participation in marketing initiatives, and being able to sell a recognised brand at reasonably competitive prices. As competition increases these benefits to the shop owner are perceived to be more important and as a result completely independent convenience stores are in decline. However because stores belonging to a symbol group are still independently owned they are still able to stock locally sourced food in addition to branded products.

Completely independent shops will have even more scope to source locally over all their products. Some independent shops may group together in local or regional buying groups rather than join a national franchise.