Jamie's Humble Pie
I love Jamie Oliver. I really do - his style, his recipes, his enthusiasm, his gardener Brian, his attitude, and his campaigning zeal - I loved him when everybody else went off him. And when they all decided to like him again because he put some urchins to work in his restaurant and sank loads of his own money into it, while trying to stop our kids eating mechanically reclaimed turkey products, I was already there, tapping my foot, saying, "What kept you?"
However, one thing has always bothered me, and has done for seven years, and that's Jamie's association with Sainsbury's. (For which read: any huge supermarket whose job it is to make money, by hook or by crook, and only pretends to care about our well-being if it helps them to make more money.) You can see why Sainsbury's leapt on him and offered him a contract worth 1.2 million a year, or whatever it is - he gives them much-needed credibility by association. By putting his signature on their packets of coriander and helping to advertise them as if they actually want us all to buy unadulterated ingredients from their stores, like vegetables and that (when they make far more profit from the "added value" items that fill about 80% of the shop floor, and only use the fresh stuff to lure us inside), Jamie Oliver stops Sainsbury's looking like a supermarket. It's all in the perception. Even though he grows his own food and shops at Waitrose.
Well now, at last, it seems that his "special relationship" with the high street (or actually out-of-town) retailer has come back to bite him on the arse. As part of C4's latest attempt to get us to stop eating shit, he's come up with Jamie's Fowl Dinners, a one-off, studio-based expose of how "standard" chickens and "caged bird" eggs are produced. I always think this stuff is common knowledge, but apparently not. It wasn't a bad programme, actually - edited with a blunt spatula, but Jamie handled the presenting well and they really pulled out the stops in order to shock: gassing unwanted baby male chicks before our very eyes (chickens bred for egg production: no males required), and showing us a chicken being electrocuted before being drained of blood. The problem came when Jamie turned to a near-empty table where representatives of Tesco, Asda, Morrisons and - gasp! - his employer Sainsbury's had declined to sit. Co-Op and Waitrose were represented, and good for them. It seems that all big supermarkets have spotted that certain customers want free-range and organic chicken and eggs, and they are being catered for, but for as long as some other customers "demand" cheap stuff, they will supply it, and the birds will suffer for that free-market luxury. (I was shocked to discover that farmers make 3p profit on every chicken they sell. This programme was careful to shift the blame off the industry and place it at the table of the supermarkets - who, of course, blame it on us.)
In an interview with the Mirror, Jamie sounded off about Sainsbury's and expressed understandable dismay at their failure to show up for his programme. Sainsbury's got cross at his "outburst". And this is where it gets really gory: Jamie wrote a letter to the Sainsbury's chairman, Justin King, grovelling on his knees, and telling him how great the supermarket was, and - in so many words - why they should renew his contract this summer. The letter is here. Read it and cringe.
I still admire Jamie for all of the reasons stated above, but surely his position as chicken campaigner and promoter of Sainsbury's has now become untenable? He may use their money wisely, funding his training programme for "problem" kids, but surely he can stop taking the Sainsbury's shilling now? There comes a point when subverting from within starts to taste a bit like having your chicken and eating it.
posted by Andrew Collins @ 5:32 PM
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30 Comments:
I believe the picturesque old saying is 'You can't ride two horses with one bum'. But daft of Sainsbury's not to show up at the request of one of their (ahem) golden geese. But if they pull out, some other megamart will sign him up pretty quickly.
I didn't see the programme, but this seems to be relevant:
In the current edition of the indispensable but occasionally confusing Good Shopping Guide (written by the Ethical Company Organisation), Sainsbury's have made it into the Ethical Company list of supermarkets, alongside Co-op, M and S, and Waitrose.
They get a middle rating for Animal Welfare, in which only Co-op and the otherwise apparently unethical Iceland get the top rating.
If you look in the corner of the page, it says "Sainsbury's sponsors Supermarkets" (ie. the supermarket section of the book). No big scandal in this, as far as I know, but...
Is there such a thing as an ethical supermarket? The big picture might indicate no, but they can certainly set a good example and exert their massive power towards better practice and good causes - like animal welfare.
This is a big enough issue on its own, so you might not want to bring in the whole thing about George Clooney endorsing Nescafe...
I do agree, he hardly needs the cash any more, does he?
I couldn't watch the programme. As you said, I had hoped this stuff was common knowledge by now and certainly don't need any more distressing visual images to ram it home for me.
But I was reminded once again how the whole issue isn't understand by so many people when trying to explain to my dad why it was that organic, free-range meat wasn't overpriced, but conversely the factory-farmed stuff was artificially UNDERpriced. He couldn't get this at all.
I cannot understand how it is that the RSPCA can be allowed (rightly) to prosecute individual pet owners who torment animals and yet factory farming is perfectly legal. If it was illegal to treat animals this way, which it should be in any civilised country, then supermarkets couldn't demand it of farmers, even to supply demand.
I didn't see the programme but would agree that it looks as if Jamie is trying to do some hasty backtracking. I would agree that he can't be promoting a supermarket and ethical food choices because it would appear that the two do not mix.
You are probably right about Jaime. As to the general issues most us could just stop shopping at supermarkets. Yeah i know all the arguments but we could just stop. Everyone has an excuse , much like our excuses for driving everywhere and wasting energy. we all could just stop shopping at supermarkets.
Just watched a download of the Oliver programme and think it was bloody well made apart from the unwarranted Gervais interludes. They just further confirmed Richard G's belief that he is a moral guardian rather than a two-bit comedian.
My other 'alf is vegan, I'm a wreckless carnivore and we both found holes in our knowledge were filled in with this show, along with Hugh FW's stuff. The key issue is clarity, for me.
Marketing (a field I work in) is a great tool for blurring the facts in order to produce a consumer response. We can handle this when we're sold 2 for 1 pringles, as we're savvy enough to do the maths in an instant. When it comes to livestock, it's a bit tricky as the product is hidden than transformed into something that looks entirely different - unrecognisable in fact. What the consumer deserves is constant reiteration that what they eat is humanely produced. What actually happens is they receive a complete misrepresentation. A lie, in fact. That's completely out of order. When some people, the majority I suspect, actually are confronted with the truth, they have to cover up the fact they're slightly ashamed with good old fashioned bolshiness. ie - 'Nothing wrong with that - it's only going to die anyway'. It ain't good enough.
Despite the slightly holier that thou attitude AC (which I suppose is only natural as you appear to exist on a diet of seeds, decaf soya lattes, lettuce pulp and HBO box-sets!), I agree entirely. People shouldn't eat lies.
I never want to seem holier than anyone. I shop at supermarkets. I buy pre-prepared salads that probably have broiler chicken in them. Nobody's perfect, except maybe the vegans.
I'm struggling with my own carnivore status at the moment, I must admit.
That was a flippant remark, no offence. And from what I've seen, vegans slip up from time to time too...
I don't defend battery farming methods, but I do like supermarkets because they are an efficient way to shop for most things. I'm not at all sure that 'we could all stop shopping at supermarkets', because most of us would never get served, in the time we have, in the tiny shops that remain.
Aha, but wouldn't that mean more small shops would spring up, cutting your waiting time in each one to say, no more than a quarter of an hour? Maybe, but how much time would pass before those shops got bigger, easier to use etc and there you are, back into the supermarket world.
Generally, people don't like waiting around for too long to be served and never did. My grandmother grew up in the 10s and 20s, and spoke of queues, shortages, favourtism, egotistical shopkeepers and nosy neighbours.
My gran liked Sainsbury's for providing the opposite of all those things - and these places provide the shopping capacity our crowded island needs.
I can remember the 70s, where families would split up and queue in different shops, just to speed the tedious process of 'shopping' up a bit.
Don't we just need to make sure that supply position isn't abused to fulfil the aim of efficiency with low costs.
Jamie must be loaded and does not really need the money, so it would be nicetosee more evidence of his ethical standpoint. I like him too and it would be nice to see him distance himself from obvious sponsorship.
AnonoNick
I have been consistent in my attitude to Oliver. I have always disliked him.
From the whole phoney mockney, Toploader, selling a lifestyle bull of The Naked Chef through to his self agrandising campaigning. I got off on the wrong foot with him and have never been able to get back on track.
I am willing to accept I may be wrong about the bloke and he may be a lovely chap. But I don't actually think I am.
Didn't I read that his contract with Sainsbury's runs out in a few months anyway? Which made me wonder about his timing in 'choosing' to make the programme now and not two years ago.
That said I watched it and though it didn't tell me anything I wasn't already aware of, I thought it was fairly well done - apart from the inexplicable inclusion of Ricky Gervaise. Why?
I find it hard to see how Jamie can honestly say in his letter that Sainsbury's are the market leader in animal welfare when in the film they showed they said that they would aim to be freerange-only by 2010, and Waitrose and Co-Op both said that they would be freerange-only by the end of February this year. So clearly they are not the market leader, they are third (if these promises are followed through).
Aside from that though I really enjoyed the programme and learned a lot. I will definitely be buying RSPCA approved food at the very least now (to be honest I thought that I was already by buying the food that had the red tractor on it, but now it seems that I misunderstood/was misled this symbol). We need clearer labelling, especially on ready-meals, pre-cooked chicken, etc. I think products should be forced to say if they are made from battery birds so that there's no excuse for the consumer and they know exactly what they are buying.
Zoe
Office pest my point wasn't about the practicalities of everyone instantly not shopping at supermarkets more the fact that we all go on about them when many of us have made the active choice to shop there. We are all seemingly waiting for someone else to make us do things we know are right.
on the subject of conveniece and supermarkets whenever I have to use them which isn't often, I'm always suprised how slow and difficult to use they are, actually paying for your stuff can often take longer than to take it off the shelves and if you don't have a car they are hopeless.
Hi Andrew
I really agree with this post. I think the worst aspect of it all was the grovelling apology Jamie Oliver offered. Obviously at some level he should be blamed for changing his publicly expressed opinion in the face of the supermarkets pressure.
But I think some share of the blame should be levelled at Sainbury's as well for pressurising him into apologising. Are we to believe that he just changed his mind without any external pressure?
It seems that the supermarkets are able to coerce and bully anyone into adopting their position, and anyone who dares challenge them will expect to be silenced.
It really was a grim spectacle seeing Jamie Oliver grovel in front of his corporate pay masters. It looks shabby, it looks tacky and it looks like the Sainbury's corporation have too much power and influence.
"I'm struggling with my own carnivore status at the moment, I must admit."
I have to agree I was thinking along similar lines myself. One of the points the programme raised for me at any rate (although this was probably not the programme makers intention) was why exactly did we need to kill these animals? I mean as a carnivore I do eat meat, but when you are presented with the image of a perfectly healthy living animal being murdered in front of you, it does make me question why exactly I eat meat. Is my own rationale, which is basically 'I like the taste of it, and I don't want to cause a fuss by having to order special vegetarian meals' really much of a justification?
Office Pest, it wasn't just the length of time it took to buy things in small shops; there was always the suspicion that somehow the best stuff was somehow always being saved for someone else. Both my mum and my grandma complained of this: 'the butcher only ever gives me rubbish'. I think it may well have been a legacy of the black market in the second world war. You might say small shops in this country never really recovered from rationing.
We are, by nature, carnivores, but in the olden days, before farming, we used to go out and hunt our meat, then we ate it, and used the by-products in other ways. That was fine. We were actually part of the food chain. Now we produce animals purely to eat them, and most of us aren't even involved in the process, and can thus convince ourselves that no animal was harmed in the making of this pre-packed sandwich. I don't think I could kill my own food. Which is why I'm seriously wondering about the whole business. The Kill It, Cook It, Eat It programme, that ran all last week, in which they showed animals being slaughtered, in detail, actually made me cry.
To bltp and emily, yes you're both right, except (bltp) that I don't think that shopping in supermarkets in inherently wrong if that's what you meant; and I have to use a car to get to my nearest shop of any kind which is a couple of miles away.
I could walk it I know, across the fields; with the crows and the rain it would be suitably medieval in the winter and I would only buy what I need as opposed to what I'd like which might be a good thing.
Rather than the olden days being a golden age of small shops (favouritism and nosiness free of charge), I suspect the independant shops we have now are probably the best there's ever been and I do use them for certain things.
On that note AC, the butcher I go to when I want some beef for a roast has a chalkboard up, in the interests of traceability I suppose, detailing in large letters 'this weeks KILL NUMBER xxx from so and so farm, in zzz' usually somewhere within 30 miles.
It's the closest I have to get to the fact of 'the kill' myself and, yes even that makes me think, but it hasn't stopped me - yet.
I'd love all farm animals to be free range, but it'll never happen.
Why buy one free range chicken for £5 whan you can buy two 'standard' chickens for £5? Not everyone gets paid decent wages, and those people that aren't are usually struggling to bring up a family on a tight budget. This has nothing to do with animal welfare and everything to do with class snobbery. And I won't have this argument that 'Oh well, if people used every bit of a chicken then they could get loads more meals off it'. People don't have time to mess around like that.
As for Kill It Cook It Eat It, (I'll admit I haven't watched it this year but saw the last series) those animals, from the ones I've seen, were killed in the most humane way possible.
I love meat, me. I'm a happy carnivore. Two packs of chicken breasts from Sainsbury's for £5? Everyone's a winner!
Interesting point about class snobbery with regards to the animal welfare argument, Bright Ambassador, and I don't have any easy answers.
However, society's to blame. We've already created an entire generation who can't cook, and expect their food to come pre-packed and pre-prepared. Two generations ago, making food out of actual ingredients was a way of life, but "progress" in food manufacture and animal husbandry in the 60s and 70s meant that chicken nuggets were our future.
Our freezer compartment when I was growing up would have taken one block of ice cream and packet of fish fingers. These days, due to the credit boom, freezers and microwaves are as ubiquitous as big tellys. The idea of meal planning has gone out of the window, and the big food manufacturers are rubbing their hands with glee as I type this.
Families on low incomes buy quick food and easy food, because they don't have time to plan meals and cook them. Processed food helps to keep the proletariat down: fed but disinclined to riot. Now that physical labour is no longer the backbone of the working classes and conscription is a thing of the past, the poor are allowed to be unfit.
Clearly, this is too big a subject to boil - or broil - down to chicken welfare. But if it's between you and a chicken, you're bound to choose yourself. Human nature. Healthier food should not be a luxury, it should be for everyone. A right, not a choice.
This debate is more interesting than the programme, as it covers many wider aspects.
1. I didn't see Jamie's letter as grovelling. Actually I believe it was polite and honest between people who knew each other. Supporters of this animal welfare issue are better off having Jamie in the Sainsburys tent pissing than him pissing from outside it.
2. There is no point arguing against/boycotting supermarkets - they are here to stay and provide a largely good service. What I do not agree with is the CEOs from Tesco/S'burys et al when interviewed always play the "that's what our customers' demand" card. We don't - we take what we are given, be it bargains that entice us in or bargains that rip off farmers or marketing tricks that rip-off us.
3. I think there is a strong argument regarding family incomes. People who struggle with managing the family budget are not going to care about farmers' incomes or animal welfare - they have their children to feed. This is THE MOST fundamental urge a human being can have, and it changes views on many life-issues.
4. People don't make 'fresh' meals any more for a variety of reasons but one of the principle ones is that mothers now generally work. I heard a compelling argument that had house-price-inflation stayed on par with RPI inflation percentages, less women would have to work and there would be better childcare, more resilient marriages, and better family diets.
5. On the animal welfare issue, if people can afford free-range chicken / eggs they generally go for it because they taste better. People who can't afford it, won't have that opportunity.
6. We are not part of the food chain, we are at the top and animals have been reared to be eaten for centuries. That we do it in bulk now is because there are more of us.
Can I just proudly boast that I don't even own a freezer... there's no better encouragement for using up every part of your chicken, quickly.
I feel sorry for all the pigs and cows that are getting left behind in this campaign, I hope they're going to be stood up for next. Oink.
Interesting migration from "is Jamie a twat" to the use of food in the control of the peasants! A slick move from cooking to food based sociology!
But it is an interesting point, as society gets lazy the way we eat gets lazier too and now everything gets done for us, we have become a throwaway culture too (in the old days we would darn or mend, now we chuck and buy new).
But a good point was made about the fact that we have always farmed animals for food, right back to the family goat. I am a happy carnivor (never happier then faced with roasted cow) but I would struggle to kill an animal. But if it was that or die, then I would probably manage.
I am sure I will get beaten up for saying this, but vegitarians never look that healthy to me!!
AnonoNick
Of course it IS society's problem, which is why I believe this whole thing's about much more than buying cheap chickens.
I don't normally get involved in these types of discussions because I don't normally care enough about it to tpye something.
However, something that always appears from someone is about ready meals etc. The point usually made is why have them when they are not usually as beneficial as the real thing and how people should learn to cook properly and how it doesn't take long to cook your own meal.
The arguments always come assuming people who have ready meals are either too busy to cook, can't cook or are too lazy to cook.
I don't fit into any of these categories and yet I have ready meals occasionally.
My reason is because I am not a very foody person. I only eat it because I have to. I also only cook for one. So when cooking for myself I struggle to think of something to do which I can get enough enthusiasm to cook and to want to eat it afterwards!
I don't have ready meals all the time, but occasionally I just want to eat something that I haven't had to think about for an hour and I don't have to force myself to eat it - I just eat it.
I am not on a low income, I can cook and I have plenty of time to cook.
Of course, I could just eat cakes I have baked myself as I wouldn't mind doing that!
One last point, it is not cheaper for families on low income to buy processed food. Your money will stretch further if you buy fresh produce and make your own. So there is no argument there.
HC
Your last point about processed food being more expensive than buying unadulterated ingredients is key. The supermarkets would go out of business is we all stopped buying processed food (and that includes anything that's been kindly made for us, from a jar of mayonnaise to an entire Indian dinner in a box). It's where the profit lies - the adding of "value" as the food processors would have it.
When I lived on my own I bought loads of ready meals - Findus meals for one, boil-in-the-bag stuff in those days, I could usually fit a couple in my freezer compartment - but they never really excited me. If I could be bothered to cook up a big pan of chilli, or pasta, dinner time was a lot more stimulating.
Last night, as it happened, I cooked for myself, and made my own pizza. Quick and easy and bloody lovely. I would never prescribe how people should eat. It all depends on so many factors, but let's not pretend that cooking with raw ingredients is necessarily a pricey, middle class way to live. The clincher is leftovers. If you cook for yourself, you can make enough for two days. If you buy in, you'll eat it all, and have to buy in again the next day.
Just wanted to make a couple of points - firstly, I was under the impression that humans were omnivorous, not carnivorous, and it seems that most people eat and expect to eat a much higher propertion of meat in their diets these days than we were 'naturally' evolved to.
Secondly, freezers are actually helpful for those who cook from scratch as well as those who fill them with crap. I'm a full-time mother, we're on a tight budget and I don't have a lot of spare time, so I batch-cook decent meals, bread, scones etc and freeze them so we always have real food in the house.
With 4 of us living on one wage, things are tight but we prioritise decent food because it is more important than cars, holidays, new clothes and most other things you can think of. However, it is cheaper for us to do so as we're all vegetarian and so don't actually buy any meat or fish anyway...
Hello everyone - long time reader, first time poster.
I think there is still a strong undercurrent of snobbery when it comes to the ethical lifestyle. For a few folks I think buying organic or ethical has become a statement or badge about their personal wealth, like driving an SUV in an urban area.
With rising food and fuel costs apon us, though, I do believe that more people will turn to the two for a fiver offers regardless of the ethical arguement.
Sorry Liz - it's been so long since I used one I automatically equate freezers with ready meals... I didn't mean to imply that freezing fresh meals was a bad thing.
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