As ever, required breakfast reading on Saturday was The Grocer's Saturday Essay (June 14, p34) and it appeared to be following much the same theme.
Professor Tim Lang was rightly pointing out that consumers (the voting public) appear to be demanding a greater degree of local sourcing, and there was a growing mistrust of big, all-powerful supermarkets.
It is my belief that the public are less and less willing to vote for any politician, yet are spending more and more money in supermarkets.
There is a good reason for this. There is no doubt that the supermarkets are becoming bigger and there is no doubt there are fewer of them.
Yet they are responding genuinely to the public's concerns over these issues while the politicians carry on regardless.
Professor Lang mentioned the need for more localised shopping and consumers' needs for more local food. Funnily enough, localised shopping is coming to a store near you. Tesco's recent acquisition of T&S, the Co-operative Group's purchase of Alldays, Sainsbury's renewed commitment to its Local and Central formats and M&S's accelerated rollout of Simply Food are all examples of the industry listening and responding.
Local food is also being addressed seriously by most of the big chains. Look no further than Waitrose which won The Grocer Gold Award for its local sourcing initiative, or the introduction of a regionality department at Sainsbury, or Asda's increasing commitment to local sourcing in the north. Others such as Somerfield and M&S are also now playing their part.
The trust that consumers had for their supermarkets and the food they bought there had been eroded by years of food scares and politically motivated rip-off Britain' campaigning.
The provenance of the food we sell and how we sell it is once again back at the top of the agenda and as a consequence that trust is being re-built.
What comforts me is that this is not at the expense of good shopkeeping principles ­ price, availability and service are still the bedrock of our industry.
Like Tim Lang I love the idea of shopping in small specialist shops and there are some, like La Fromagerie or Berry Brothers, that really inspire me.
However, like Lang I recently went shopping down Battersea's Northcote Road (yes, we northerners do sometimes venture down south) and I came away greatly disappointed.
Five out of the 12 items on my list were not available in any of the small shops. I ended up getting all five in the Tesco Metro in Wimbledon. Similarly, trips to London's Borough Market are a delight, yet it only opens on a Friday and Saturday.
It may appear a little odd that The Grocer Gold Best Independent is making such a staunch defence of its larger and sometimes rather intimidating competitors, but all these values are at the heart of our operation.
Booths is a supermarket chain and has successfully grown its business (faster in recent years than all but one of those majors) by ensuring that we retain a strong link with the communities we serve.
Our customers do trust us and we understand the need to invest in our relationship with them. We've always sourced more products locally than any of our competitors. After all, we all live locally ­ somewhere.
Perhaps one day our political leaders will remember that.

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