PRICES: A GROCERS TALE

The people feeling the full backlash of the Tory prices fraud are that largely blameless section of the retail community —the back-street grocer.

The Tories find it useful to cultivate the myth that the small shopkeeper, who deals direct with the working-class consumer, is somehow responsible for prices.

The family grocer is an easy target, always on the spot to receive a complaint. The supermarket is an anonymous place. The hand that alters the price-tag is invisibleshoppers who question policy will be referred to head office. And the agitation usually ends In fact small powerless. His prices are dictated by the big food combines (some of them with their own massive retail chains) and he survives against the supermarket only by staying open for incredibly long hours to catch off-peak custom. He is, in fact, a fast disappearing breed of businessman. In 1967 there were 94,500 across-the-counter grocers. The number now is around 60,000 and the forecast for 1979 is 20,000.

The multiples (Fine Fare, Sainsbury, Tesco, etc) control the largest chunk of the market, with 43 per cent of turnover compared with the truly independent grocer's 20 per cent. By 1979, according to LINTAS the marketing agency, multiples will have swallowed 77 per cent of turnover. The people who share the control of prices, therefore, are the supermarket chains and the food monopolies. In some cases the two sectors have merged into one vast organization. Hence Cavenham's, controlled by the highflying financier Jimmy Goldsmith, markets the Bovril range of foods (Bovril, Marmite, Ambrosia rice etc), slimming breads (Slimcea, etc) AND runs the biggest private retail chain in Britain-Allied Suppliers-bought last January from Unilevers.

The Cavenham's retail empire, with the Wrights and Moores Stores interests added, has around 2,200 retail outlets and a turnover of over £300m a year-higher than any other grocery chain and three-fifths of the massive £535m annual sales of the entire Co-operative Wholesale Society. big boys, like Associated British Foods, which controls Fine Fare, are the shadowy giants that the Tories never name. Yet they do control price by board decision.

The annihilation of the back-street grocer will be completed by entry into Europe. The death blow to the small independents will be Value Added Tax (VAT). Apart from making prices rise 'at a stroke', this innovation, borrowed from European capitalism, will present formidable administrative problems to the small man who cannot meats have all gone up. The they ngures in lne Grocer ana 67L ra-A -aro 'Shaw's Guide' speak for themselves.

The reason is simple-how can a price freeze work if the foods from abroad are outside control? Almost all the processed stuff we sell has some foreign food in it, so it's got to go up.

I think the government is basically trying to brainwash people over this freeze. People don't know much about prices, they don't know who calls the tune on prices, they just see the shopkeeper like me. But I never for tl Th really pete They get c man that.

Th every You lowin like man Bet the bill but people rao-lts too compicated hem or too much trouble. le small shopkeeper is y finished. He can't comagainst the supermarket. • order in bulk and they :oncessions off. The small can't do anything like le small businessman /where is going under. can see that we are fol1g developments in places appearance of some afl but it's all on credit.

Take the Christmas ping, for example. Most do it through the mai firms-that's all on crec whole thing is resting debt. It looks prospero its not underneath.

But the real crunch and the buying publi come after we go in Common Market. Thi: will orinnlo ne I man'. will cuppie us. ‹ cau : shoppeople I order dit. The on this us, but for us ic will ito the VAT + wnrl her. Some other times she will find she hasn't got enough, so you'll say 'All right darling, that's OK'—you won't get that from the supermarkets. There's no credit there, even to the starving. grocer-his prices are dictated and so on-some of them really have to scrape to keep up appearances.

We've heard about the so-called freeze-I'd rather call it the squeeze, because that's exactly what is happening to people, they are being squeezed. When people begin to find themselves only £2 or