La Mode Verte
Environmental Awareness Through Media ProductionsArchive for Supermarket
Where Your Fresh Baked Loaf Really Comes From
www.telegraph.co.uk 30th March 2011
Quoted from source:
‘There is something reassuring in the thought that while we sleep through the early hours of the day, bread is being made. Cushions of dough slowly rising in their tins, radiating the most heavenly smells as they bake – the charms of this nocturnal craft have always been held very dear. Well wakey, wakey to the reality. That crusty loaf on sale at opening time in your local supermarket may not have been kneaded, shaped and proved by a real baker, but brought in deep-frozen from a plant hundreds of miles away, defrosted and “baked-off” by staff who only need to know how to throw a switch. As well as this, the vast majority of our loaves are made from imported flour – with grains being bought from locations as diverse as Russia, Canada and France. One thing you can be sure of is that very little of the wheat used in supermarket bread will be British.
Modern baking has all the romance of a North Korean multiple wedding. It seems that the stuff of life itself has entered the crazy world of cryonics. Part-baked dough is suspended at -19C for up to a year before being given a blast in an oven to crisp it up. It puts into question the whole commonly made claim of “freshly baked bread”, yet those seemingly informative labels on the wrapper reveal nothing of this time in the deep freeze. Like a desperate, ageing starlet, supermarket bread lies about its real age.
But not for much longer; European law is to change, and retailers will be soon forced to reveal all foods that have been previously frozen.’
Read the rest of the article here.
Waitrose Named Compassionate Supermarket of the Year
Sources: http://www.independent.co.uk 15th July 2o10
Waitrose beat other UK supermarkets, such as Sainsburys, Marks and Spencers, Co-op and Morrisons, to be named as the compassionate supermarket of the year in this year’s Good Farm Animal Welfare Awards. The examining body, Compassion in World Foods, scored Waitrose highly is such issues as “stocking densities, freedom to express natural behaviour and the overall well-being, and praised its standards for pigs, chicken and farmed fish”. Two other main awards went to Morrisons (Best-Improved Supermarket) and Sainsburys (Best Volume Supermarket).
Supermarkets Reduce Glass in Wine Bottles
Sources: The National Geographic Summer Edition 2010
Supermarkets are experimenting with using lighter glass bottles for certain wines. The move is being promoted by the Waste and Resources Action Programme (WRAP) and has caused Tesco to launch ‘the lightest ever wine bottle’. Weighing in at 300g (the average is 500g) the bottle will reduce the company’s annual glass usage by 560 tonnes. Its usage is currently limited to Tesco’s own Australian Red Non-Vintage wines. Waitrose, too, released their own Virtue wines last year. The bottles consist of 60% recycled glass and are lighter than the average bottle. The wine is also shipped in bulk (currently from Chile) with all bottling taking place in the UK. There are certain hurdles that have to be overcome in the future though. Heavy bottles tend to be viewed as being more upmarket and prestigious. Furthermore, much of the wine sold in supermarkets is bottled outside of the UK and tightly controlled by local laws (such as the Appellation d’Origine Controlee).
