Supermarket competitiveness can harm local food economies that sustain our market towns and villages, the food producers who supply them, and the people who depend on them. Their monopoly position in the market allows them to dictate how much they pay farmers, while at the same time seeking out cheaper food from abroad.
Not all consumers are in easy reach of a supermarket. Hard as it may be to believe, there are those who have no car, no internet, and whose shopping budgets are too small to qualify for home deliveries.
The glazed expression of a supermarket check-out girl does not offer the social contact and conversation that can be found in a local shop, for some this is there only brush with other people they get each day.
When superstores open, small shops close. Not always, but it does happen, especially when ridiculously over-sized stores open on the local shop's doorstep.
Local markets and shops tend to stock fresher local produce rather than the standardised symmetrical blander vegetables you will find in supermarkets.
