[Image-1]
The news that Pete’s Fine Foods has been purchased by Sobeys is a good reminder that the state of food sovereignty in Halifax—and beyond—is rather troubling.
[IMage-2]
Food sovereignty is not only about one’s direct access to food. Whether people have adequate amounts of food at any one time is better described by the phrase “food security.” The direct provision of food aid to save lives over the course of a famine, for example, is an effort to restore food security, but not necessarily food sovereignty.
A food sovereignty approach to feeding the world emphasizes the need for people to be empowered. Unfortunately, people have less and less control over how the food they buy is produced, processed and distributed, as control becomes concentrated in fewer and fewer hands. Across the globe, ordinary people are losing the battle over who has power over the decisions and processes related to food and eating.
What does this have to do with Pete’s? To be clear, it makes little sense to consider Pete’s through the lens of food security. It is expensive. Few people who shop at Pete’s are worried about hunger.
It does, however, make sense to think about the takeover of Pete’s by Sobeys through the lens of food sovereignty. Before it was bought, Pete’s represented a choice to buy food from a relatively small, independent grocer. Understanding why this might be important requires thinking about what has changed now that Pete’s is no longer independent.
Control over decisions with large grocers is much more concentrated, and thus less likely to be influenced by individual consumers or even relatively larger groups of them. And this has important implications going all the way back through commodity chains to farms, where growing practices are increasingly determined by large distributors. Put differently, the large grocers are telling farmers how to grow our food without asking us for our opinions.
Five large corporations currently control approximately 70 percent of the food retail business in Canada. This should raise concern. If the distribution of food were entirely monopolized by one large corporation, we would likely be protesting in the streets. Yet just how different is the current configuration?
The small independent grocer has been going the way of the dodo for quite some time now. Pete’s once represented the hope that the trend might not be irreversible. Though it provides food for the privileged, it nonetheless displayed the kind of buyer-to-seller ratio that allows for people to think and act as community members and not solely as consumers.
As concentration of control over food intensifies, we are treated as though our only role in our food systems is that of consumer. The large grocers (along with the large producers and processors) make all the crucial decisions and shape nearly everything about our food. Ordinary people only enter into the equation after the food has been placed on shelves. Yet we are told that our choices are important.
If we don’t reverse the current trend and redistribute control over food production, processing and distribution, independent grocers like Pete’s will serve only as nostalgia, and not as a models for how other less elite-oriented grocers might survive.
———
Voice of the City is a platform for any and all Halifax individuals to share their diverse opinions and writings. The Coast does not guarantee the accuracy of, or endorse the views of those published. Our editors reserve the right to alter submissions for clarity, length and style. Want to appear in this section? Submissions can be sent to voice@thecoast.ca.
Related Stories
Sobeys to take over Pete’s
This article appears in Nov 19-25, 2015.
Oh, this guy again. Hey Coast isn’t this what the LTWWB section is for?
Mr Higgins, where do you buy your groceries? Also, these five large food corporations that are controlling so much must be doing something right to be where they are now.
So go buy from a farmer’s market, or one of the *gasp* multiple small independent grocers that exist around town.
I have a theory on how a person achieves food security or sovereignty or whatever the kids are calling it these days. It’s simple –
1. Learn a marketable trade or professional skill.
2. Sell that skill to the highest bidder in the labour market.
3. Use the resulting earnings to buy food from economically efficient producers and distributors.
Voila, you’ll never go hungry.
Many people have no idea about food production as a grower, or farmer. Many urban dwellers have not grown food or foraged for food in the woodlands, wetlands or along coasts in Canada. As a result many Canadians are simply consumers of the foods that are available in grocery stores.Higgins is raising a hugely important issue that relates to food security and access to food by all Canadians.Do not take lightly the fact that five corporations currently control about 70% of the food retail business in Canada.Do not be so ignorant as to scoff at this.This has and is having a huge impact on the viability of the Canadian family farm or community farm, low income citizens as well as local economies. And I haven’t even mentioned the impact on health of citizens. Due to space limitations let me end with: support local farmers and markets for the health of you and your family as well as for the economic health of your community/city. I studied human nutrition and agriculture in a Canadian university and I worked with Aboriginal people in northern Canada.
Sobeys is trying to find a neiche market in slightly higher end food shopping I think. They have never really competed with Superstore (or Costco) in a big-box, everything is available kind of way, and now Walmart and Giant Tiger and discount places are looking at taking over the low end of the market. I suspect Pete’s is the direction they are looking to head in, so buying it makes a lot of sense.