I had gone to the supermarket to buy milk but soon found myself far from the dairy aisle, staring bewildered at the tubs, tubes, tins, packets, and bottles stacked meticulously – a visual stampede of farm workers, factory packers and carbon footprints. 

Living in Berlin and mostly going to our nearby organic shop or local supermarket (much smaller than its UK counterpart), I hadn’t been in a really big UK supermarket for a while, possibly a year or more. Perhaps this meant I was more attuned not only to the scale of the operation but also to how little of the food in there I wanted to buy. In amongst those garish packets, schools voucher schemes, traffic light systems, and special discount offers, the real food was lost. My intense love of food shopping – that endless daydreaming of possible meals – vanished. This wasn’t fun, it was grotesque. Continue reading →