117. Confluences, water gypsies and Tesco’s

Downstream from Caversham on the north bank, lies two features on the Thames that almost make it unique, a confluence and a supermarket superstore on a river.

The confluence is where the River Kennet enters the Thames, and the supermarket superstore is Tesco’s.

The River Kennet links the Thames with the Kennet and Avon Canal and therefore the boater who has all the time in world can now navigate from Reading to Bristol.

Of interest is where this Tesco’s is situated .It is situated out on a limb on the eastern part of Reading with little or no houses in the immediate vicinity. The argument that such stores drive local shops out of business is in this case pure folly .There is now a growing trend for supermarkets to source their own products via their own brands and this  surely is a cause for concern. In the past many supermarket products were obtained from local suppliers and in particular “fresh food” such as meat, fruit and vegetables. Today this is not the case you just go shopping for typical English Sunday lunch. You’ll find lamb from New Zealand, potatoes from Portugal and broccoli from Spain.

 Finally, chew over some facts about our food industry when you next sit down to a meal:

- Food production takes up 25% of the world's land - more than the world's forested area.

- Food in the UK now travels 50% further than it did two decades ago.

- A traditional Sunday lunch made from imported ingredients generates 650 times more carbon emissions than the same meal made from locally grown ingredients.

-  Sustain ,  an organization helping to achieve better nutrition in developing countries have shown  that a basket of 26 items of imported organic produce had travelled, collectively, a distance equivalent to six times round the equator, releasing as much CO₂ as an average family of four does through cooking meals for eight months.

- According to Deloitte  Touche, the largest professional services organization in the world, farm income from a 500-acre farm dropped from £80,000 in 1995/6 to just £2,400 in 2001. Conversely, about $300bn is now spent globally on agricultural subsidies.

- The global acreage of GM crops increased by 12% in 2003, reaching 58.7m hectares.

- In the 1970s, supermarkets offered about 5,000 different lines. Today that figure stands at 40,000.

- In the UK, five major supermarkets control more than 70% of grocery sales. In turn, they deal with fewer than 30 major food suppliers and processors.