Would You Like A Plastic Bag With That?

In Australia 70% of the retail grocery market is dominated by two major corporate operators, Coles and Woolworths, giving these major players the power to dictate to farmers the pricing and conditions in which they will buy. Their dominance of the grocery trade is eroding consumer choice, driving up grocery prices, threatens independent specialty shops such as green grocers, milk-bars and butchers, and perpetuates the use of over packaged plastic wrapped food blindly selected amongst fluoro lighting and security cameras.

Producing our own food and groceries is impractical, if not outright impossible for most Australians, and while the rise in alternatives to the supermarket such as farmers markets, delivery box schemes, buying groups and community co-ops is encouraging, Coles and Woolworths continue to dominate the retail grocery sector. Their practices continue to undermine our relationship with food, underestimate its social importance, disrespects the farmers growing our produce, and give little consideration to the sustainability of their approach.

We deserve an alternative...
Friends of the Earth Australia is currently developing a campaign aimed at delivering a major change in the way food and groceries are sold in Australia.  The campaign will explore a range of food and grocery issues with a focus on the unsustainable nature of our existing retail sector and the supermarket duopoly. 

To respond to the issues raised, FoE will pilot a 'sustainable supermarket' - a weekend Eco Market that will provide at least 70% of the goods you can find in a traditional supermarket.  However the goods you’ll find at the Eco-Market will need to pass certain environmental and social criteria before they are allowed to be sold on the market stalls. 

The Eco-Market will be a living example of a sustainable retail shopping experience.  Principals of local, seasonal fresh chemical free produce underlie the foundations of Eco-Market.  In addition the importance of waste minimisation, recycling, cutting out the middle man, creating community and educating the public about food, retail and consumption problems are also incorporated.  To enhance public education, we will develop a shopping guide to help people make more informed and ethical choices when shopping.

Eco-Market is not just another place to shop before you hit the supermarket, it is your ‘one stop shop’ so you can avoid the supermarket completely.  You can expect to find around 70% of the common product lines you might expect to buy at a supermarket.  From fresh fruit and vegetables to dairy, meat, deli items, bulk grains, cereals, basic hardware, energy saving electrical goods, herbal medicine, used clothing and furniture, CD’s, sustainable stationary, essential oils, printer paper and much much more.  All these items will be sold at our outdoor market by local stallholders surrounded by an atmosphere of music, cakes, hot fair trade coffee and a community vibe defined by the shoppers that support the Eco Market. 

In recent times we have seen major packaging companies charged with price fixing, the big supermarket chains are being questioned by the ACCC about inflationary pricing policies, and the industry is mounting multi-million dollar campaigns opposing the banning of plastic bags and the expansion of South Australia’s Container Deposit Legislation into other states. This is clearly an industry who’s social license to operate needs to be put under the spotlight.

Guilty: 2005 - Coles Myer-owned Liquorland fined of $4.75m for liquor trading breaches
Guilty: 2006 - Woolworths fined $8.9 million for price fixing.
Guilty: 2007 – Visy fined $36 million for price fixing.

The campaign will address issues such as buying power, pricing, dictation of consumer choice, supply chain and food storage methods, whilst highlighting the need for providing product history in regards to sustainability and working conditions.

The Eco-market, in its day to day function, will operate two or three times a week with a diverse group of independent stall holders operating from the space. Friends of the Earth are confident that we can attract vendors whose ethics are shared with ours and hopes to:

• provide a trusted alternative to supermarket, chain and corporate consumerism
• provide an opportunity for consumers to buy environmentally and socially responsible products
• develop a community environment which encourages social interaction
• develop a Product Purchasing Guideline to ensure eco-efficiency is prioritised
• have a commitment to encouraging education amongst stall holders and the broader community
• have a commitment to locally grown, produced and manufactured sweatshop-free products
• a commitment to ensuring the market operates with least impact concerning waste and energy use on the site
• provide a space for environmental, social justice and community based groups to operate, including FoE campaigns
• protect the rights of food producers by ensuring fair pricing
• protect the rights of the environment by working with sustainable enterprises
• encourage a plastic bag and waste free environment
• a commitment to a GM free environment

Stall holders will be selected using a Product Buying Guideline that is being developed by Friends of the Earth as a way of attracting farmers, growers, wholesalers, retailers, designers and second hand merchants with solid environmental and social justice credentials. This is an important aspect of the campaign, with the goal being to provide a structure to seek out products with the least environmental and social justice impact when considering the entire lifecycle of the product.

The Product Buying Guideline will be expanded and published in two forms:
1.  FoE intends to publish a buyers guide to sustainable grocery shopping that will be widely distributed. The guide won’t tell people what products to buy, but rather will enable shoppers to make informed decisions about their groceries while they are doing their actual shopping. How to identify organic food, minimising packaging, and reducing your overall environmental footprint will be just some of the topics of our essential sustainable shopping guide.

2. A second version of our guide will be developed to help our market vendors to improve their operations. We have been careful not to mandate a single path to sustainability or best practise. However, it will allow us to work with vendors who are inspired to work for environmental equity, requesting that they operate with a transparent, open minded approach, particularly when interacting with consumers and community groups. Once this guideline has been rigorously tested it will be made available to any retailer whose customers are demanding change.

A Starting Point
The market project will commence in Melbourne as an obvious choice for Friends of the Earth given its long history of food campaigning in Melbourne since the mid 1970’s. Our goal is launch the first Eco-Market on March 1st 2009.  The success of the pilot market will determine future moves to operate in provincial Victoria and interstate, focusing our efforts in areas where a FoE group already exists, with a goal to generate long-term funding opportunities for individual/regional groups whilst providing local communities with a sustainable route to consumerism.

Friends of the Earth is seeking support to generate the start-up funds for this project through philanthropic grants, sponsorship and private donations. If you are interested in donating to this campaign or would like to become involved in the continuity of the market project, please contact us by email
ecomarket.melbourne@foe.org.au or or Cam Walker on cam.walker@foe.org.au