Filed under: videos | Tags: Food, Food Distribution Centers, Great Britain, Infrastructure, video
While the supermarket (the first ever is the delightfully named Piggly Wiggly) was invented in America in 1916, its growth over the last century is dwarfed by the growth of supermarkets in some other western countries such as Great Britain. Across the pond, the supermarket was introduced in 1951 and its hold on this much smaller food producing country has become much more significant given the Britain’s reliance on food imports.
While in America we are slightly closer to a balance between supermarkets, smaller stores, and public markets, in Britain over 80% of food consumed in households is from a supermarket. Like the food distribution centers that sell to markets, smaller grocers, and restaurants, major supermarkets such as Walmart, Tescos, Costcos, and Sainsbury’s have recently begun consolidating there food distribution through their own distribution centers. Moving more towards vertical integration, supermarkets are also beginning to hold dominion over some of the farmers and food processing companies that stock their shelves.
The video below from the BBC’s series Britain From Above takes a look at the massive and complex spaces and logistics of supermarket food distribution in Great Britain. In many ways, this system is much more technologically advanced and efficient, but one must question the need for privacy towards efficiency vs. the need for the public’s national, regional, and local food sovereignty (the right of peoples to define their own food).
