Who Really Shapes Our Landscape? (Hint: It’s in Your Shopping Basket)

We all must operate our businesses within the capitalism prism – that states the rules of the game we’re all trying to play, most of us fairly.

Capitalism has given us many things, and it can be difficult to conjure something better without being overly idealistic.

I’m all for being pioneering, bordering on the cavalier… pushing the boundaries.  But “bois bach” it can diminish your energy sources if you keep doing it year on year. And it can be highly unprofitable. 

We therefore must engage with capitalism’s way of thinking.  Driven by optimum management of resources, capitalism will inevitably mean the bigger beasts will overcome the smaller.  I’ve seen so many ethical pioneering brands in the food sector, being sucked up by the “big boys” – Innocent by Coca Cola, Ben & Jerry’s by Unilever, Pipers Crisps by Pepsi Cola, Green & Blacks by Cadbury’s/Kraft….

These were brands I looked up to, showing us a new way of doing things… however, I can see why capitalism leads to this inevitable path of the big gorging up the smaller, nimbler and more beautiful smaller pioneer. 

At the other end of the spectrum, it offers plenty of space for dynamic and agile small businesses to develop the niches, such as the genuine interest by consumers for local food and drink.

The drive for local has been going on ever since I joined capitalism’s playing field as a business owner back in 2007/8 attempting to launch new food products into the market place… have we really progressed that much with local food and drink?  Overall, the data on self-sufficiency suggest we have indeed gone backwards.

I do sense better awareness, and I have even picked-up more narrative around food systems over the last decade or so… however, I need to have a reality check and realise that just like the social algorithms, my real world network might well be biased and unrepresentative.

Exempting a handful of exceptions, such as vineyards, orchards, dairy sheep, market gardens… that are dotted here and there around Cymru, I have barely noticed any changes in our land use nor the production mix.  We continue to pump out milk (bovine), beef and lamb – nearly all onto the commodity market.  Talk about asking for trouble.

And please don’t talk about food security within my hearing…. go and take a walk around any part of rural Cymru.  Do you really see signs that we are seriously bothered about food security? 

As some might label a “middle-class” Cymro, and having joined the children as part of my mid-life crisis, we proudly purchased 6 laying chickens a few months ago.  Poached, their eggs gave us another nutritious start to the day this morning.  We are, however, extremely fortunate to have the option and means to do that. 

The complexity of our food system is legendary.  Get your head around it, and you will realise that what we decide to put into our mouths, shapes our landscape, our economy, our culture and our society. 

Connect the dots, or more apt, the “links” in the chain, and you will see how choosing to shop in an independent retailer over a multinational shape our community.  It’s the local shop run by Jonny and the team that turns up with a stall in the school fair, not the multinational…  It’s Jonny that always responds positively to requests for support week in week out… it’s the same local embedded team led by Jonny that gets involved in the carnival every year… and all with minimum fuss because that is what they do.   Social value matrix is nowhere to be seen, quite rightly.

The multinational retailer in the village will on the other hand shout out so loudly on how its token or voucher collecting initiative has changed the community and will drag the story out for months… with its use of tokens, maybe I can get away describing it “tokenistic?” 

Likewise, choose a smaller quantity of Welsh Black burgers over a larger pack of generic beef burgers, and your decision may well have led to better animal welfare, a healthier meat fat profile for your children, a contribution to maintaining Cymru’s heritage and culture, supported a small local farm to thrive and be part of the community fabric, and have led to positive land management and even carbon sequestration… 

Ok, ok, ok…. I know that purchasing Welsh Black beef burgers can be like finding a needle in a haystack, but do you get my point?  There are many thousands of other examples out there I could point out to.

Capitalism, or “consumer sovereignty” that underpins it all as a concept, has led to the globalisation of food and drink.  The journey has been impressive, and many positives have come about from it. 

It hasn’t been accidental.  Policies, set out by Governments across the world has turbo charged the movement.  Inter-continental trading has bought us closer as a race in many ways, and I wouldn’t want to see that stopping. 

However, the decades of global spree have led to us having corporations that surpasses the power of individual countries.  With wealth comes political power, and I’m afraid that we must accept that we as micro and small businesses have literally no direct influence on macro factors.

When it comes to capitalism, “i’r pant y rhed y dŵr” (into the hollow runs the water) chimes so true.

And this takes me back to our patron saint in Cymru, Dewi Sant.  And every New Year turn we take, I revert back to applying his thinking – “do your own small things Geraint” and let the others do their own stuff. 

There are “things” we can do.  When it comes to food and drink, I need and plan to step-up my seasonal eating in 2026.  That can be one of the most powerful steps we can take, given the opportunity, for our health, community, economy and the environment.   And it’s an enjoyable learning curve to add icing onto the cake… or maybe best not as we’re not producing sugar here, yet.  Let use honey icing!

We can think clever about the ways we prepare food to make good use of energy.  Maybe there’s more fresh and raw ways of eating I can use this year?  And let make a better effort to cook when my solar panels are throwing out excess kilowatts. 

We all have ways of trying to make things better.  And I have a tolerance level which I suspect is quite average in terms of how much pleasure or luxury, I will sacrifice.  It’s all about trying to find better ways and possible re-engineering our understanding and thought processes. 

I know that one of the “quick wins” to save on energy whilst cooking is to make more use of a microwave.  However, we’ve rejected having a microwave in the house – I still don’t think it’s a good idea - I do hold my hands up, it’s a gut feeling thing rather than a scientific logical conclusion.

So, what can we do together to change things for the better?  I don’t think I have answers, and I know many better qualified minds have spent years on this question.  I’m persuaded that the goodwill is there, and we could make things happen on a local level if we channelled it efficiently.  I’d go as far as to say that I have some new ideas that may morph into solutions one day.

One concerted, well co-ordinated effort I’d like to see is spreading the story about the impact of our eating choices.  Let go easy on the terribly blunt, obscure and often abused “food mile” measurement… let bring “£s” into the conversation.  

Take a small city like Bangor.  Of the 8 often quoted leading supermarkets in the UK, Bangor is served by 7 of them, all within 3 miles of the city centre.  I would estimate, based on secondary intelligence speaking with store managers over the years, that collectively, they have sales of approximate £150m per year in food and drink, which translates to £3m/week. 

If I was generous, and soft enough to be influenced by the posters of Welsh farmers and the red dragon draping the exteriors, signage and bags, I might assume 5-10% of the sales value were from Welsh produced or Welsh made suppliers. 

I accept the situation might be better than it was, however we can’t conclude firmly as there’s no independent tracking.  In my mind, if I had to place a bet, I’d go for 2-4% of the sales value go back to either Welsh produced items (meat, veg…) or Welsh manufactured food/drink.  Imagine if we could, in partnership as I’m not talking about enforcing here, get this up to 33%.  That would be around £1m of extra money inter-changing with other businesses in Cymru, just from grocery sales from a city like Bangor.  Factor in similar scenarios in Llandudno, Caergybi, Aberystwyth, Trallwng, Wrecsam, Glannau Dyfrdwy, Dyffryn Clwyd’s towns and you could see how very quickly £8m additional trade could be flowing every week, leading to higher local tax intake for our resource depleted councils, schools and hospitals, more employment opportunities and just the ripple effect of more £s staying local keeping wealth in rural areas.

Although I wouldn’t naturally advocate more rules on supermarkets as I generally don’t like burdensome legislation, I think we could, if we were serious, apply more demands for a certain % of shelf-space to be dedicated to either Welsh made products or using predominantly Welsh ingredients.  “You can’t do that Geraint, get real” I hear some churning in their minds.  Well, it already happens! 

I know of many farm shops and honesty box/sheds, who are quite ironically, only allowed to trade or awarded planning permission conditional to selling its own produce or only local produce.  If we are serious, then there are things we can do within sense and having a progressive view of change over a decade or so, rather than overnight.  It should be a journey – jogging pace ideally. 

Nice dream eh?  Well, I’m happy to remain with the dreamers….  the alternative of accepting things as they are, moaning and groaning and standing in line doesn’t appeal.

We’ll continue to do our own little things in Lafan and Bwydydd Madryn, working closely with our partners, clients and suppliers.  We are blessed to be given the space to make things happen through collaboration, innovation and breaking new ground.  We find ourselves working with educators, policy makers, business founders and owners, innovators, community groups, NGOs, academics, children, politicians, creators…  even if I didn’t need the income, I would still want to spend time with these people doing what we’re doing. 

And, yes we can’t wait to continue playing on the field in 2026… getting dirty, sometimes injured but occasionally assisting with scoring a screamer.  Ymlaen.  Amdani.