High Street Shopping

[JulieSherris]

Ahh...there's no actual veg shop, MMM - the small village had one last year, but closed because of 'lack of interest'

Supavalu actually has a good veg range & yes, there's the usual pre-packed, or strangely out of season stuff, but that's all sat alongside the fresh, local veggies (lots of swedes around at the moment!)
One of the nice things is that even the packaged goods have the county/village of production, so in Glenamaddy, you buy mushrooms from the Glenamaddy mushroom company.

We have a national 'Love Irish Food' campaign at the moment which is being sponsored by the TV companies & any & all foods produced in Ireland carry the campaign sticker. It's nice to know that the campaign is being supported heavily - keeping irish folks employed to feed irish people & keeping the finances within the country.

Actually... I remember commenting to hubby that it's been ages since we've seen New Zealand Lamb......
nothing against New Zealand, but it's rather nice buying a few chops & reading the ticket on the counter that tells you what farm today's Lamb/Pork/Beef has come from

[Green Aura]

Lucky you - even in sheep central we find NZ lamb and it's usually cheaper than the local stuff.

The biggest problem round here is the Highland foods accreditation, which means most of the produce gets shipped off to all points South and command high prices.

As for High Street shops - we have no High St Just one road that has a Spar and another general store. Both are lovely, but very expensive. I recently bought a "few bits" and 2 bags of coal = £93

It's cheaper to drive the 200mile round trip to Inverness.

I recently discovered the delights of Dingwall though. Town centre supermarket (which I object slightly less to ), a nice High St, not filled with the usual cr4p. And a great growers market every Saturday. Still about 80 miles each way though!

[Millymollymandy]

When we get our about twice a year promos for cheap lamb (you have to buy about 4kgs worth) - guess where it comes from?

R of I or Britain! The British was best.

[Flo]

We've a variety of independent shops in the town of about 14,000 people - greengrocers, bakery, tv shop, electrical goods shop, lot of takeaways and restaurants, a chair shop, a stationers (expensive), card shop, one small clothes shop for hip tweenies and teens, bridal wear, a post office and a general store that does everything from paint to screws and gifts with a bit of gardening and Christmas stuff as per the season. However the paper shop is part of a chain, there's a small Co-op which has taken over the local garage with convenience store and there are a couple of Spar/general stores off the main street. We've gained a factory outlet shop which sells overruns and end of ranges.

It serves for bread, papers, emergencies, a good buy in chairs and the stationary shop can get things like laser printers and scanners on special order.

We are half an hour from a major shopping mall (one of the UK's biggest) and Newcastle City Centre so we really don't expect a lot. However there has been on quashed planning application for housing with new retail outlets which will probably reappear and if it gets through this time with no failure on technicalities, then all will change.

[mrsflibble]

I live in basildon. we had a butcher, but it closed down. then we had another one, and that went too. now we have a van on the market (not sure about that) and a market stall, but he can't tell me where any of the produce is from AND his chicken breasts looked decidedly dodgy. I don't buy them per se, i just use them as a gauge of how nice the other stuff might be....

We do have a veg stall on the market, but everything I have from there goes off very very quickly, and the last lot of onions I had were ALREADY off when i got them home so i'm back to asda.

in lee chapel where I live, we have a lovely bakers. they dont bake their own bread, but it comes daily from a factory about 5 miles away; round the corner from my father in law's house in fact hahaha!

out pharmacy is a co-op one, I'm fairly sure the newsagent is still independant but I could be wrong.

[yvette]

I live in East London, and when we moved here in 1989 our local shopping street (not the High St, just local parade of shops) had an independent butchers, wet fish shop, watch and clock repairers, good fruit and veg shop with a fast turnover, shoe repair shop and key cutter, health food shop, newsagents, small grocers and the best fish and chips in the South East. Many of our neighbours then were elderly, and they could get most of what they needed just down the road. All are now gone except the butchers. Instead we have several betting shops and loads of takeaways. We are lucky that we have a market in nearby Stratford for fruit and veg sold in paper bags, not all wrapped in plastic. But with the developent of the olympic site and the huge shopping centre that goes with it we are wondering if the market can survive...