A green shopper’s diary: please share if you care
Today was the day for going to top up on veg. I am so frustrated with the lack of green training of Shoprite staff so that I have to repeat at least four times that I don’t want any bags, with every purchase, I was looking forward to better treatment at Food Lover’s market, after all this is what they claim on their website : The next step in the evolution of Fruit & Veg City was to create a modern eatery where food aficionados could indulge in a range of gourmet foods. It was this vision that finally gave birth to the Food Lover’s Market, a theatre of food that was designed specifically with connoisseurs in mind. The Fruit & Veg City team crossed the globe in search of the hottest international trends in food. They visited the United States, Europe, Australia and the East, and then brought the best elements of what they saw in there back with them. The result is the stylish and modern food emporium called the Food Lover’s Market. At the Food Lover’s Market, we cater for the discerning customer, the connoisseurs, the professional ‘foodies’ and, of course, our regular customers who are used to the exceptional quality and variety on offer at Fruit & Veg City. These people went “all around the world” but somehow must have skipped Germany and didn’t pick up on the hot international food trend of green pracice, with its awareness of green shopping because they don’t seem to care or they certainly don’t train their staff to be prepared for a green shopper. This is what happened today: I took out my own little bag to weigh the peanuts. The guy at the scale goes… "what’s this"…. So I say; "I bring my own bags, its for the environment". So he thanks me, as if I had the bizarre inclination to bring my own bags to save Food Lover’s market the price of one bag. At the cash point, the cashier says ‘what’s this” so I go through the same spiel. The cashier is incredulous… “no man” she says with utter contempt and holds up my bag with the tips of her fingers. “yes man” I say, and go into my spiel about the mountain of garbage at Vissershok. I can see she understands what I’m saying, she’s just never ever heard of anything like this before. After I’ve paid I nail the office guy standing near the door to the office. He smiles and smiles and says its going to take a very long time. I’m just appalled and angry. At the very least, if they aren’t actually going to go green, they should educate their staff so that they aren’t caught completely off guard when a customer brings their own bags. Remember this is the same ownership as Woolworths, where everything, almost, is bagged in brown paper to look natural. So this greenness at Woolies is nothing but lip service and hollow pretense. In the parts of town where the yuppies don’t shop they don’t bother, and still generate all the garbage, in fact even more. This lip service to green customers in the shadow of the mountain, and the lack of any green consciousness in staff on the flats, this colossal apparent laziness and indifference by a food retailer, one of the biggest producers of the rubbish at Vissershok, I just find myself reacting with offense, it seems absolutely greedy, mercenary and shameful. Their pretense at elitism and fine food purveying appears to be utterly opportunistic and as false as any marketing spin I’ve ever heard in my life.
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Authordraftswoman, recent student of Linguistics, Jill of all trades, planner of green new world.. Archives
October 2017
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