3 April, 2008...12:42 pm
Dilemma
A dilemma I was faced with in the supermarket yesterday - Woolworths Organic Pasta vs Barilla Pasta.
I feel that buying the Woolworths brand supports organic industry, and encourages supermarkets to stock more organic products. It’s also cheaper than Barilla, so it’s affordable organic produce and makes my grocery bill more palatable. However, I think that by buying it I’m contributing to the elimination of smaller brands in Woolworths, and I end up picturing a future supermarket where nearly everything is made by the house brand, organic or not. Barilla has more variety, it’s more expensive, and it’s not organic. I think it’s a good brand of pasta, but that’s an automatic snob opinion based more on the box it’s packaged in - I doubt I could tell any difference in the flavour or texture of the pasta.
I have similar dilemmas with organic house brand flour, and fancy Italian flour especially for cakes (not organic, and imported). I like buying fancy cake flour when I’m making cakes, but I often feel guilty and buy the organic flour (again, usually cheaper than fancy cake flour), so I have a bit of a mixture in the pantry. Yesterday I went with the organic pasta, but I buy a bit of Barilla as well. I suppose it depends on your personal priorities, which for me are supporting environmentally friendly products - ie try not to buy imported stuff, buy organic stuff - but also supporting small businesses, or at the very least not monolithic businesses, and having my groceries be affordable. They’re not always particularly compatible priorities, hence my dilemmas in supermarket aisles.
I don’t think supporting small business is really possible when you’re shopping in Woolworths - if I was serious about that I’d be shopping at little independent stores - but I think supporting businesses other than the Woolworths brand is worthwhile. I read an article about supermarkets in the UK that are completely dominated by the house brand due to them undercutting the competition in price, and I’ve noticed a trend in that direction in the two big Australian supermarkets (Woolworths and Coles) over the past few years. The house brand is always cheaper, which is tempting, but I’d prefer to still have a choice between several brands for each product.
What are your priorities in the supermarket?
5 Comments
3 April, 2008 at 6:58 pm
Could you shop at a co-op, and buy your organic pasta by weight (buying only what you need, and saving on packaging!). Andrew and I get our pasta from the co-op, but we have it easy as there’s one within walking distance and one at Andrew’s uni (which we get a 40% discount on because he volunteers there).
4 April, 2008 at 10:52 am
Priority in the supermarket = getting in and out of there as quickly as possible.
We have a pasta machine - it’s easy to make your own fresh and once you get a taste for it there’s no going back.
5 April, 2008 at 9:20 pm
I can appreciate your dilemma. I’ll admit I’ve not had it with pasta because I haven’t looked at anything other than Barilla for a long time, but I do have it with tinned tomatoes and chickpeas. Thinking about it now, I realise I choose the Coles brand on one occasion–reasoning that it’s really a version of one of the other brands on the shelf–and the other variety on another. But both tend to be organic. Anyway, I have a rainbow of tinned tomatoes and I quite like the look of all the different labels in my cupboard. Which reminds me of the man I saw on Collectors who collected tomato tins for the labels. I’m not that bad yet–I’m still throwing the empty tins away.
Ciao
(because, coincidentally, I picked up a Lonely Planet guide to Italian this week in anticipation of a trip to attend a wedding there later this year. I like your podcast idea. I might give it a go myself).
7 April, 2008 at 2:13 am
I tend to discriminate on the grounds of quality, origin and price. Organic doesn’t always come into it, because some of the organic fresh produce looks half-dead over here, while other basics are vastly over-priced. Origin is airmiles… most of our fruit and veg is imported even though we grow lots of stuff in the UK. Do I want green beans from Kenya? Am I paying for the veg or its airfare? Those considerations are often enough to make my appetite vanish altogether.
20 April, 2008 at 8:05 pm
Good point Cassie - there’s no co-op convenient to where I do my shopping though.
Mmm, I love fresh pasta Bella - but I would find it difficult to give up the convenience of dried
The podcasts aren’t bad, Kirsty, although I find them a little slow (in terms of how they speak - it’s difficult to tell how the rhythms of speech would work when speaking at a normal pace). I’ve got a Pimsleur Method CD from the library which is really great. Oh, and I always switch about with canned stuff too, particularly with tinned tomatoes.
Hmm, that would be tough Ariel - it is good to live somewhere where we have a lot of fresh local produce.
Leave a Reply