A big thank you to those who voted for Brexit

biba70

I do remember British supermarkets when I first arrived in 1970- it was bleak and the lack of choice felt a bit like East Germany.

I have to say that supermarkets barely existed in Britain in 1970. The few there were were small compared to the big ones we're now used to.

As a young married woman in Sheffield in the early 70s all shopping was done at local specialist shops. If I recall rightly I think Sheffield had one small supermarket in the city centre. (and a fabulous indoor market which catered for the large West Indian population!).

I haven't visited East Germany but I did spend time in the then Yugoslavia which may have been similar and there was absolutely no comparison between them and British supermarkets.

We also visited France a lot and British and French supermarkets were fairly comparable for choice.

Also Tesco on the Ecclesall Road MaizieD. I remember when Sainsbury's arrived and a friend said, "to listen to you southerners you would think it was the second coming". ? Then there was the fabulous whole food shop 'Down to Earth" and as you say, the wonderful indoor market, where we did a lot of our shopping. We loved food shopping when we lived in Sheffield in the seventies.

We had Co-op, Safeway, Asda, Gateway and a great market selling so much fresh produce including fish straight from the harbour.
And a plethora of small shops selling excellent fresh produce, baked goods etc.
Bejam for frozen food plus other foodstuffs.

When I moved to London I couldn't find goat's milk!!
I had to buy frozen.

There were loads of supermarkets in the UK by 1970 MaizieD, unless you lived right out in the sticks. I think even hypermarkets in out of town locations were opening in the late 1960s weren’t they, I’m sure I remember going to one when I was about 12? I’ll have a look online in case I dreamt it.

You didn't dream it, Casdon

We used to go to a farm for meat, though.
It's still going now but much larger and posher than it was in the late 1960s/1970.

NotSpaghetti There are farmers (perhaps now it's were) producing exotic salads and other vegetables year round but many of the workers were foreign and they have gone home.

Maddyone The variety of English apples may be huge but they're not available in many British supermarkets. And I can't agree that English tomatoes are wonderful, unless they're home grown, which is different.

I remember hearing Jane Grigson talking about a visit to an Israeli tomato grower. He had many poly tunnels full of evenly shaped and sized tomatoes which he was growing for the English market. He was also growing a few tomato plants outdoors and she had some of these for lunch. She said they tasted delicious and why didn't he grow them for the English market. The answer was that the supermarkets didn't want uneven shapes.

Mamie My GM and DM taught me how to cook but we also had lessons when I was a grammar school. One thing we were taught was how to make pastry (all kinds) and bread, including milk rolls. We also had sewing lessons.

Casdon

There were loads of supermarkets in the UK by 1970 MaizieD, unless you lived right out in the sticks. I think even hypermarkets in out of town locations were opening in the late 1960s weren’t they, I’m sure I remember going to one when I was about 12? I’ll have a look online in case I dreamt it.

I lived next door but one to the first supermarket in Colchester, Casdon. That was in the mid 60's and it was very small by today's standards. There weren't many others by the early 70s.

I remember Sainsburys coming to Sheffield. As a Southerner I, too, was delighted. But that was the mid/late 70s.

No, I didn't live in the Sticks, but there just weren't that many around in 1970.

Yes Dinahmo we had cooking and sewing lessons at school too, but they didn't teach me to do either. My grandmother cooked at home, but I learnt mostly from books.

Well we must have passed in the aisles MaizieD. Bottom of t'Moor. ?

I found this article online, which is an interesting summary of the history of supermarkets in the UK.
www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/how-britains-shoppers-dealt-first-11838089
Like your family Callistemon, our meat was still from the butcher, and our bread was bought daily from the baker. In those days though, a trip to the supermarket was an adventure - how times have changed!

Back in the early seventies I worked part time for the owner of a fruit and veg shop near Hyde Park. His family imported exotic fruit and veg. Back then the exotics were only imported for upmarket restaurants, Justin de Blank and Harrods. Occasionally Stephen would get hold of box of mange tout, or those tiny French beans, kumquats and wet walnuts whenever they were in season. It's difficult to imagine those foods being exotic but they were back then and expensive too. I was lucky and got a staff discount.

Now that our tastes and food experiences have expanded and we want a wider variety of produce much of it is produced in poly tunnels because it's more practical. Anybody flying to southern Spain will have seen the acres of these things.

It is a dilemma as to buying imported fruit and veg. I see in our local shops imported French beans which have come from Africa. If you decide not to buy them then the farm workers in Africa will lose their jobs. I try to buy seasonally because I think the crops do taste much better. When we lived in Suffolk I used to pass a farm shop on my way home from work. The asparagus season saw me in there most evenings as it's my favourite veg and I could buy it very cheaply. There were also boxes selling it loose for making soup - different sizes but good pickings.

Going back to the original subject - Polly Toynbee is writing about the Brexit effects so more examples:

Fisherman in Hastings getting 2p a kilo for huss

Likelihood of Irish horses not coming over to England for the big racing festivals.
English show jumpers not going to the continent.

The above two are because of "colossal" taxes

Delays in getting car parts affecting the car manufacturers.

There are many more. And before anybody slags off the Guardian or PT, she is quoting from the Torygraph, the Sundays Times, Farmers' Weekly and others

I have to say that supermarkets barely existed in Britain in 1970. The few there were were small compared to the big ones we're now used to.

Supermarkets were indeed smaller in the 1970s than they are now but as for barely existing; well that's nonsense! I have a photograph of my sister and I, taken in a Fine Fare supermarket in 1967, having won a competition in store. There was also a Liptons supermarket, Gateway and Co Op and MacFisheries supermarket in our town. The large supermarkets didn't become popular until the 1980s, when a monthly shop became more popular than the weekly shop. Here's a list of supermarkets that were trading in the 1960s & 1970s:
These are some of the supermarket and grocery chains from the 1970s:

Allied Suppliers (Liptons)
Asda
Batemans - South Wales & West England
Co-op
Fine Fare
Gateway
David Greig - London & South England
Hintons (Amos Hinton) - North East England
Gem Super Centres (part of Asda)
Grandways (part of William Jackson)
Jackon (William Jackson) - Yorks, Lincs, Notts
International Stores
Key Markets - South England, Midlands, Wales
Low (Wm Low) - Scotland
Mace
Mac Fisheries and Mac Markets
Marks & Spencer
Moores Stores
Pricerite
Safeway
J Sainsbury
Tesco
F W Woolworth & Co
Spar
Vivo
Mace
Kebby's Supermarkets (Unigate)
VG
Waitrose
Woolworth

Imported tomatoes are bland and flavourless because they are picked whilst green and transported in refrigerated trucks where they gradually turn red, but fail to develop any flavour whatsoever.
British tomatoes on the other hand, are only picked when ripe and ready to eat, which is why they develop their full flavour, on the vine, not on in the refrigerated truck.

Dinahmo you obviously prefer the flavourless tomatoes produced and transported to the UK in refrigerated trucks. Perhaps that’s because they come from the EU and you appear to have started a thread to denigrate British food and praise all food from the EU.

Fisherman in Hastings getting 2p a kilo for huss

Cornish fishermen are selling locally, having had to find new outlets due to COVID.
They are making better money by cutting out the middleman.
This Fishing Life 18/1/20 BBC2

We had a huge Co-op in the depths of Devon!

There was a deli, a bakery, lots of fresh produce.
As I've never bought a kumquat I don't know if they sold those too.

maddyone

Imported tomatoes are bland and flavourless because they are picked whilst green and transported in refrigerated trucks where they gradually turn red, but fail to develop any flavour whatsoever.
British tomatoes on the other hand, are only picked when ripe and ready to eat, which is why they develop their full flavour, on the vine, not on in the refrigerated truck.

Dinahmo you obviously prefer the flavourless tomatoes produced and transported to the UK in refrigerated trucks. Perhaps that’s because they come from the EU and you appear to have started a thread to denigrate British food and praise all food from the EU.

I think that you have misunderstood me. I said that I didn't agree that English tomatoes are wonderful (your statement)
unless they were homegrown (my statement) in which case they are wonderful. Where did I suggest that I preferred imported tomatoes? Did you read the next paragraph about Israeli grown tomatoes? Obviously not.

In any case, living in France my OH grows tomatoes. I know someone who has seeds of 160 varieties and I can chose from 10 or 12 different varieties in season and that includes ones that look a bit manky but are absolutely delicious.

Why you should think I started a thread to denigrate British I don't understand. The only food I mentioned in my opening comment was the good quality cheddar that I was able to buy in my local supermarket and no longer can.

I was decrying the fact that there are some things I can no longer buy in England and have sent to France but not for selfish reasons because there's always a substitute (maybe not British). What I hate, with all my heart, is what is happening to the country of my birth.

I would suggest that you read the whole and the rest of posts before you start accusing erroneously.

Waitrose & Partners first appeared on the high street in 1904 when Wallace Wyndham Waite, Arthur Rose and David Taylor opened their shop in Acton. They managed to create a successful business selling a wide range of grocery products.

I used to shop for fresh food in Woolworth's after work because it was near the bus stop.
We even had department stores

BTW, Woolies is still going on in South Africa and very posh too. Felt like Waitrose.

Callistemon

^Waitrose & Partners first appeared on the high street in 1904 when Wallace Wyndham Waite, Arthur Rose and David Taylor opened their shop in Acton. They managed to create a successful business selling a wide range of grocery products^.

I used to shop for fresh food in Woolworth's after work because it was near the bus stop.
We even had department stores

I think you're confusing food shops with supermarkets, Cal. They did exist before supermarkets... We did buy food in shops before supermarkets existed.

I'm very sceptical of the long list you posted earlier. A link would be useful.

And if Waitrose was a supermarket in 1904 I'll be the most person ever...

P.S You left Presto off your long list. They had a branch in Sheffield in the late 1970s, it was behind The Moor, as I recall...

biba70

BTW, Woolies is still going on in South Africa and very posh too. Felt like Waitrose.

And in Australia too - just food.

They still have Big W there too, selling household goods, books, clothes etc.

Waitrose started in 1904 Acton London.