Supermarkets are springing up all over the UK – much to the detriment of local corner stores. But what caused this nation-wide phenomenon? How have we gone from a ‘nation of shopkeepers’ to a country of convenience-crazed mega-marts?

The emergence of the British supermarket is intertwined with the social problems that have run alongside. It started with the Co-operative Movement of the 19th century, and food being sold to working people for affordable prices. Food production rocketed with the initiation of the ‘cheap food’ policy of the 1948 Agricultural Act, and the government giving subsidies to farmers, enabling them to buy new machinery and chemicals.

Onto 1964, and the abolition of Retail Price Maintenance. With manufacturers and suppliers losing the power to dictate prices, the supermarkets began to turn the tables, dictating the prices back to the suppliers themselves. This meant that they could offer bargains to entice customers, stealing them away from the smaller, independent stores in the process.

The falling cost of global transportation over recent years has also helped supermarkets source produce abroad for less. And so while the supermarket became the saving grace for the consumer, with affordable prices and a huge array of out of season produce, the now estimated 100,00 miles of transportation that the average shopping trolley clocks up represent a major catastrophe for the environment.

However, halting imports could have a detrimental impact on developing countries. Consider also that, with approximately 900 horticultural producers in the UK using glasshouses that are artificially heated, British grown produce is not necessarily more energy efficient. Sandra Bell, Supermarkets Campaigner for Friends of the Earth, says that with supermarkets pushing down prices for farmers, it is “harder for them to invest in environmental measures.” As a result, farmers in the UK are leaving the industry. Bell goes on to point out that this is “one of the long term threats to having a more localised food system: so on the one hand you hear the big supermarkets talking about the fact that they’re going to increase their local food, which is clearly very good PR at the moment, but actually on the other hand what they’re doing is pushing out a lot of the UK farmers that could provide a more localised food system in the long-term, so their actions are going against a more sustainable farming system.”

But good PR it is. A recent consumer poll, published on 31 May by YouGov, ranked the Co-op as the most eco-friendly supermarket, with two-thirds of the consumers questioned believing the ‘greenness’ of a brand played a part in their decision whether or not to buy or sell its products. Not that the supermarkets need anyone else to do this kind of research for them. Loyalty cards allow them comprehensive insight into their customers’ shopping habits, with the added surveillance benefit of showing where the customers live – and whether they have a local store.

But while the supermarkets are cashing in on the new wave of green consumerism, community projects are also emerging to give life to their waste. In 2005, food recycling network Fairshare saved 2,000 tonnes of food from being wasted, by redistributing food waste to disadvantaged people, helping businesses reduce C02 emissions by 13,000 tonnes. The £5 million that was saved by the network of local charities was then reinvested into the community.

But this stage of the supply chain is only the start of the food waste problem, as Bell makes clear: “A lot of waste, particularly in terms of fresh produce, is wasted before it even reaches the supermarket shelves, and that is because supermarkets change their requirements… we hear stories of whole fields of produce being rejected by supermarkets for fairly spurious reasons. That applies to packaging as well.”

Packaging has been a clear target for campaign groups and government bodies. A joint agreement with the British Retail Consortium and WRAP has seen UK retailers agreeing to reduce the overall environmental impact of their carrier bags by 25 per cent by the end of 2008. If achieved, the 25 per cent reduction target could reduce carbon dioxide emissions by up to 58,500 tonnes a year – equivalent to taking 18,000 cars off the road for a year.

WRAP has also announced that it will be funding a £1.2 million project to investigate innovative front of store technologies, to assess the recycling potential of the retail forecourt. The research will look at a number of front of store recycling (FOSR) and reverse vending technologies. Sainsbury’s and Tescos have been awarded project money to install, manage and carry out research on two different technological approaches to FOSR. Both will contribute further funding and introduce the technology at six stores with the help of Valpak and Tomra respectively.

While Sainsbury’s is trialing Valpak’s Rescape recycling bin line at its centres, Tesco is providing its customers with advanced material recognition and compaction technology systems that Tomra developed specifically for this application. The units use real-time CCD cameras, enhanced multi-frequency metal sensors, and near-infrared (NIR) spectroscopy technology to sort the recycling, so the consumer doesn’t have to.

A new Innovation Fund set up to target the source of the waste problem – with the aim of reducing the weight of primary packaging and the cost of production and transportation – has also been made available by WRAP. The fund is designed to support research and development projects that focus on reducing the amount of packaging and food waste that ends up in the household bin.

From its noble beginnings, the impact of the supermarket on British life and people has been colossal. But with its wealth and following, the supermarket should also be well placed to influence change for the good.