Sep

30

Sainsbury’s Reply

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Following on from last month’s Shop Watch, we sent an offical letter to Sainsbury’s detailing the problems in labelling policy that we, and you guys who helped out, had found. The letter detailed our complaints and why we think it matters, backed up with photographic evidence! We’ve now recieved a reply, although to be honest it doesn’t really address the issues. So we may be writing back to push the point. Anyway, here is what they had to say

Thank you for your recent letter on behalf of the Fair Flags Campaign. I am sorry that you feel we do not label our products from the United Kingdom fairly. I can appreciate how concerned you must be.

We take our product labellung very seriously and review the information on our packaging, to ensure it is as clear and honest as possible. We have been committed to supporting British farming for over 130 years and our policy remains to buy British wherever we can. Of our food that can be produced in the UK, we source over 90% from Britain. Indeed we sell over £6 billion worth of British food every year. We also stock over 3,500 locally produced products.

The products we use are sometimes purchased from a number of approved sources. This means that the actual country of origin may vary throughout the course of the year, depending on availability and other factors.

I have passed your feedback onto my colleagues in our labelling team. They have assured me they are confident that our products are labelled to meet all legal requirements. That said, I am sure they will take your comments into consideration when next reviewing our packaging.

Thank you once again for taking the time to contact us and let us know your observations. We welcome all feedback as it helps us improve our products for our customers

So no answers to the specific questions we raised, but at least we have some recognition, and I assure you we will continue to push our point.

Sep

26

Waitrose forum

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I noticed this morning that Waitrose have a forum on their website.

Shopping at Waitrose only happens for special occasions for my family but from the Fair Flags perspective they look pretty good. Not so much in the showing flags but for clearly identifying the origin of food. They’re not perfect but look about the best to me.

Anyway I think it’s a great idea for a supermarket to have a forum  but it’’s a shame that the worst offenders don’t have one.

Sep

23

Is Sainsbury’s Listening At Last?

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We have been told that following letters of complaint and an exchange of replies, Sainsbury’s phoned the complainer and informed her that the issue could be raised at the next marketing board meeting.

Although Fair Flags claims no credit for this independent initiative, I hope our offical letter to Sainsbury’s is something that will come to their attention at the meeting.

Now is the time to push Sainsbury’s as the meeting may be this week! We have all the contact details here or fill out a complaint form at your local branch. Please mention Fair Flags if you can, an organised campaign should encourage them to change more than a series of individuals. Also don’t be fobbed off with a standard corporate reply, keep on pushing that complaint.

Even if this drive isn’t succesful it shows they listen to your complaints. So your work is not in vain, if they don’t change now, maybe they will listen next time!

Sep

15

More Reasons to Shop Watch at Morrisons

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This month’s Shop Watch is on Morrisons. If your local supermarket is a Morrisons and you’d like to help us, please keep an eye out for how they label their food. Anything with flags on, or listing country of origin is interesting to us. We’d like photographs, but stories and observations are welcome too. So please help us by commenting below or sending anything you have, good or bad, to examples[at]fairflags.org.uk.

We have a letter on its way to Sainsbury’s at the moment following last month’s efforts. In a month’s time we’ll be contacting Morrisons. So we need your help now! Thanks.