Just another anti-Brexit rant. What the writer should be ranting about is the environmental and logistical absurdity of making sandwiches in England and shipping them in a fuel-guzzling truck to another country. What a despicable use of resources and no wonder these sandwiches are so overpriced.
No doubt the sort of people who shop at M&S for food consider themselves to be ‘good’ people who care about the environment. As is so often the case with these people, they are wrong.
So now the government should ban all forms of food exported from the UK on the basis its bad for the environment? Or is your problem only with prepared food?
Also a reminder that London is closer to Paris than some parts of the North of the UK. Should we also ban the transport of Sandwiches in the UK that are over 200 miles?
Leeds 1884, Pity about Demise of Retail ,Debenhams, Maplin electronics, Carphone Warehouse,Edinburgh woollen mills,Peacocks etc ..Not all of US want to buy everything online!
That is the basis of life and has nothing to do with Boris Johnson or the ‘Great Reset’
The high street was collapsing long before COVID. We can mitigate the damage, which is exactly what the government has done. 400 billion dollars at the last count.
Where did he say anything about government banning? Think for a second, would a sandwich made so far away be fresh when you got it? Does it make environmental sense to ship a sandwich that isn’t going to be fresh so far away? Seems like people want fresher, cheaper food, not staler, more expensive food. Even if it’s British.
You can food from the South of England to Paris in hours. It will still be fresh. The French do not know how to make Sandwiches. Particularly not Cheese and Pickle or Coronation Chicken.
Why would they? Those are British food tastes, not French tastes. In any case, it seems like British people living in France could still make a cheese and pickle sandwich. It isn’t rocket science. They do have cheese and pickles.
It does seem odd and environmentally foolish to ship sandwiches such a distance. I wouldn’t buy a sandwich made in another country as it wouldn’t be fresh. Aldi seems to have the hang of this as it does not sell prepared food in the US and its produce and dairy are locally sourced in the US. Keeps the prices low and it’s much fresher.
UK Imports 40% of its Foodstuffs &ReExports 20% &rising Without this uK Manufacturing at 11% GDP is struggling..Pity lib-Lab-Cons-Snp-Green Globalists Cannot see need to Manufacture &lessen imports on China?
Jerry Mee-Crowbin
3 years ago
I’ve lived in France for 14 years, of which six were in Paris, the rest in Burgundy. Despite the adulation of French gastronomy both in the UK and France it should be noted that most French people pass from cradle to grave without ever tasting real, ‘unmucked about with’ cream. My (French) wife was shocked when I showed her some six or seven variations, all new to her, not one of them even slightly cheesified, when we once visited M&S in the UK.
La creme fraiche, so called, is anything but. You wouldn’t put in your coffee or tea, for example. Brown sugar, in all its variations is almost unknown.
The French are clueless about bacon; a wave in the direction of a frying pan or grill is all you get. I gave some friends a taste of crispy bacon some years ago and they didn’t know what it was but they loved it, not believing that it was the same stuff they simply warm for thirty seconds before it goes into a quiche. BLT’s are virtually unknown, and hardly anyone here knows how to make a half decent sandwich though it has to be said that many baguettes are very good.
Other than next to la Gare du Nord in Paris, nobody in their right mind would visit an Indian restaurant in France (I once had a spiceless curry, to my horror), which is another reason why the M&S curries are so badly needed here.
As an aside, I’d like to add that while the cafe culture is attractive, the coffee, for the most part, is not. I’ve had far better cappuccinos in Africa and Bangladesh than I can get in almost every French cafe. Even Starbucks only uses UHT milk! Don’t ask for a flat white, they’ll look at you as if you were mad. Thank heaven for Costa!
M&S food shops are almost always full, mostly by French customers of discerning taste, so I can only pray that they cut the paperwork and bring M&S back here where it is so very badly needed!
I too have lived in France, and still visit regularly. You make many good points. However, just look at the weekly or monthly lunch menus posted outside French junior schools and weep when you compare them to British schools.
I can’t say that’s been my experience though it does seem that in France the bulk of sandwiches for sale have cheese in addition to some other filling.
Lucky you dont live in Germany ”Percy Pigs” According to pro-EU british media are in danger! All because Anti-Common market people,like myself..however as its EU import Tax fix that!
David Bell
3 years ago
If the extent of the problem is proving what the ingredients are of a sandwich then what is the problem.
Just for comparison when we joined the EEC the imposition of VAT caused so many problem that a court case started by M&S over the definition of a tea cake ran from 1973 to 2008. So these are hiccup’s not problems!
Fraser Bailey
3 years ago
Every time I wonder into an M&S food store or section I point at everything and say ‘How much? How much?” How would one say that in French? Anyway, there are obviously a lot of French people with more money than sense.
Yes, I know that ‘combien’ means how much, but I was thinking that there might be a more colloquial French way of expressing surprise and despair while saying the same thing.
Rónán Davison-Kernan
3 years ago
MEanwhile we now have very real shortages of food in supermarkets in Northern Ireland.
Yes, It’s almost like the Great Potato Famine. There’s no food to be had at all! What will we do? Don’t let us die this time! Can Lord Adonis and Gina send us food parcels until they get us back in? Never mind the Peoples Vote send us The People’s Potato!
Ian Barton
3 years ago
Plus ca change …. je pense 🙂
Johnny Sutherland
3 years ago
I’m still working on my comprehension of the UK being a distribution hub for the EU as stated in the FT.
I also like the comments about French customs slowing things down. I seem to have heard that before…..
yvesmariestranger
3 years ago
The M&S gène, Like their skinny jeans, Caused some gêne. (Irrietrievably British?)
Roger Inkpen
3 years ago
Does M+S count as a ‘big business’ these days? Certainly it used to – I seem to remember they got to £1 billion profits before Tesco (OK, may have been sales). No doubt they were part of the business lobby saying how bad Brexit would be for Britain.
But as the article shows they were never really committed to trading in Europe. I guess most EU capitals have (or have had) an M+S, but you don’t see them in other major cities, food or clothing stores.
With the exception of Tesco, our other larger retailers never bothered to step foot on the continent. And Tesco never tried in the western countries, only the former eastern bloc. But you’ll see French and German retailers in Spain, Italy, and many other parts. Lidl and Aldi have around 20% supermarket share, as well as the likes of Zara in clothing.
If the shopkeepers of the nation never made a serious effort to get European consumers, it’s perhaps not surprising that the ‘nation of shopkeepers’ made no effort to become European!
The US grocery market is incredibly competitive. If you’re competing on price, you can’t beat Wal-Mart. And Fresh & Easy, Tesco’s oddly named entry couldn’t compete on price. British foodstuffs are very easy to find in the US, including at Wal-Mart, Kroger, Publix, all the big chains. Then there’s the Trader Joe’s and Whole Foods that carry lots of British foods.
Thai grocery stores haven’t competed in the US either, nor have Chinese or French or Italian, Polish, etc. Aldi has found a very small niche (upscale neighborhoods and they carry locally sourced foods with a little German cookie and cake aisle) that works perfectly for them but they are the exception, not the rule.
Indeed, what amazed me was that after 45 years of EU membership our “great British businesses” had almost no business on the continent. For example, the big insurance companies had no or terribly performing European businesses. Ditto the banks. British retailers around the globe are a disaster, I witnessed the coming and going of M&S, Next, B&Q, New Look, Tesco, et al in China and all were a disaster. M&S was a particular dud as even the food section was highly limited to only ambient and dry foods, nobody could understand what the hell the clothes section was supposed to be.
British banks never needed to be in the EU as virtually all of their profitable activity could be managed through the City of London. Ditto insurance… you clearly have never heard of Solvency Two. The finance industry is just fine thank you very much. All that moved ‘back’ is the Euro clearing stuff which is big but not that big as to permanently damage the City. As one of the other posters mentioned, this is but a hiccup whilst things are worked out.
As for Tesco, where I live in the Far East, Tesco is the biggest supermarket chain used by everyone. It is the discount supermarket so attracts hoards and I do mean hordes of shoppers.
M&S out here though is very limited in its food choices but then again few people out here eat western food anyway. I get my extra strong tea bags there. I miss them.
On the rare occasions that I walk through an M&S clothes section, the drab uniformity of the products resembles that of Mao’s China. As such, I’m surprised they failed in China.
I don’t think of M&S as comparable to Zara, isn’t it a department store? Perhaps there are German department stores in Spain and Italy but I can’t think of any.
And it’s not a discount store like Zara and Aldi and Lidl. All 3 are in the US. Notably the grocers all use US suppliers for produce and dairy, not German ones. And they are dirt cheap, although their main competition is Wal-Mart. Shoppers are bewildered by the Aldi cart procedure.
Michael Cowling
3 years ago
Le peuple n’a pas de British bangers. Qu’ils mangent des andouillettes!
J J
3 years ago
Just out of curiosity, do we now treat the EU as a ‘third country’? That is, make them complete forms to confirm they meet UK standards? Not suggesting we should, just curious.
J J
3 years ago
No Sandwich is better than a Bad Sandwich.
What about their over ready meals?
Just out of curiosity, do we now treat the EU as a ‘third country’? That is, make them complete forms to confirm they meet UK standards? Not suggesting we should, just curious.
Annette Kralendijk
3 years ago
This sign really should just be simplified to read…….
Look what you rubes have done.
one a zed
3 years ago
I see that M&S are now realizing that HMG’S cheap food policy isn’t popular with the EU. It was fine when chinese chicken breasts were imported and duty paid in Southampton, but now that Asian chicken, duck, pork & prawns don’t qualify for a quick transport over the channel, sourcing week become important. GB origin food qualifies – maybe that the brexit dividend!
Just another anti-Brexit rant. What the writer should be ranting about is the environmental and logistical absurdity of making sandwiches in England and shipping them in a fuel-guzzling truck to another country. What a despicable use of resources and no wonder these sandwiches are so overpriced.
No doubt the sort of people who shop at M&S for food consider themselves to be ‘good’ people who care about the environment. As is so often the case with these people, they are wrong.
So now the government should ban all forms of food exported from the UK on the basis its bad for the environment? Or is your problem only with prepared food?
Also a reminder that London is closer to Paris than some parts of the North of the UK. Should we also ban the transport of Sandwiches in the UK that are over 200 miles?
This Brexit stuff is getting out of hand.
London is closer to Paris than some parts of the North of the UK.
The “levelling up” compass appears to be pointing the wrong way.
To be fair, I think that M&S branch was in Paris long before Boris Johnson came to town.
Although it’s not widely known that M&S is a Northern company, or at least it’s first branch was in the North.
Leeds 1884, Pity about Demise of Retail ,Debenhams, Maplin electronics, Carphone Warehouse,Edinburgh woollen mills,Peacocks etc ..Not all of US want to buy everything online!
Those that adapt survive, those that do not …
That is the basis of life and has nothing to do with Boris Johnson or the ‘Great Reset’
The high street was collapsing long before COVID. We can mitigate the damage, which is exactly what the government has done. 400 billion dollars at the last count.
Where did he say anything about government banning? Think for a second, would a sandwich made so far away be fresh when you got it? Does it make environmental sense to ship a sandwich that isn’t going to be fresh so far away? Seems like people want fresher, cheaper food, not staler, more expensive food. Even if it’s British.
You can food from the South of England to Paris in hours. It will still be fresh. The French do not know how to make Sandwiches. Particularly not Cheese and Pickle or Coronation Chicken.
Why would they? Those are British food tastes, not French tastes. In any case, it seems like British people living in France could still make a cheese and pickle sandwich. It isn’t rocket science. They do have cheese and pickles.
It does seem odd and environmentally foolish to ship sandwiches such a distance. I wouldn’t buy a sandwich made in another country as it wouldn’t be fresh. Aldi seems to have the hang of this as it does not sell prepared food in the US and its produce and dairy are locally sourced in the US. Keeps the prices low and it’s much fresher.
UK Imports 40% of its Foodstuffs &ReExports 20% &rising Without this uK Manufacturing at 11% GDP is struggling..Pity lib-Lab-Cons-Snp-Green Globalists Cannot see need to Manufacture &lessen imports on China?
I’ve lived in France for 14 years, of which six were in Paris, the rest in Burgundy. Despite the adulation of French gastronomy both in the UK and France it should be noted that most French people pass from cradle to grave without ever tasting real, ‘unmucked about with’ cream. My (French) wife was shocked when I showed her some six or seven variations, all new to her, not one of them even slightly cheesified, when we once visited M&S in the UK.
La creme fraiche, so called, is anything but. You wouldn’t put in your coffee or tea, for example. Brown sugar, in all its variations is almost unknown.
The French are clueless about bacon; a wave in the direction of a frying pan or grill is all you get. I gave some friends a taste of crispy bacon some years ago and they didn’t know what it was but they loved it, not believing that it was the same stuff they simply warm for thirty seconds before it goes into a quiche. BLT’s are virtually unknown, and hardly anyone here knows how to make a half decent sandwich though it has to be said that many baguettes are very good.
Other than next to la Gare du Nord in Paris, nobody in their right mind would visit an Indian restaurant in France (I once had a spiceless curry, to my horror), which is another reason why the M&S curries are so badly needed here.
As an aside, I’d like to add that while the cafe culture is attractive, the coffee, for the most part, is not. I’ve had far better cappuccinos in Africa and Bangladesh than I can get in almost every French cafe. Even Starbucks only uses UHT milk! Don’t ask for a flat white, they’ll look at you as if you were mad. Thank heaven for Costa!
M&S food shops are almost always full, mostly by French customers of discerning taste, so I can only pray that they cut the paperwork and bring M&S back here where it is so very badly needed!
I too have lived in France, and still visit regularly. You make many good points. However, just look at the weekly or monthly lunch menus posted outside French junior schools and weep when you compare them to British schools.
In my experience, sandwiches with more than one thing in between the bread slices are the sole domain of America and Vietnam.
I can’t say that’s been my experience though it does seem that in France the bulk of sandwiches for sale have cheese in addition to some other filling.
Lucky you dont live in Germany ”Percy Pigs” According to pro-EU british media are in danger! All because Anti-Common market people,like myself..however as its EU import Tax fix that!
If the extent of the problem is proving what the ingredients are of a sandwich then what is the problem.
Just for comparison when we joined the EEC the imposition of VAT caused so many problem that a court case started by M&S over the definition of a tea cake ran from 1973 to 2008. So these are hiccup’s not problems!
Every time I wonder into an M&S food store or section I point at everything and say ‘How much? How much?” How would one say that in French? Anyway, there are obviously a lot of French people with more money than sense.
“How much?” is “Combien?”. You must know that already Fraser, if you have lived in France.
Yes, I know that ‘combien’ means how much, but I was thinking that there might be a more colloquial French way of expressing surprise and despair while saying the same thing.
MEanwhile we now have very real shortages of food in supermarkets in Northern Ireland.
Yes, It’s almost like the Great Potato Famine. There’s no food to be had at all! What will we do? Don’t let us die this time! Can Lord Adonis and Gina send us food parcels until they get us back in? Never mind the Peoples Vote send us The People’s Potato!
Plus ca change …. je pense 🙂
I’m still working on my comprehension of the UK being a distribution hub for the EU as stated in the FT.
I also like the comments about French customs slowing things down. I seem to have heard that before…..
The M&S gène,
Like their skinny jeans,
Caused some gêne.
(Irrietrievably British?)
Does M+S count as a ‘big business’ these days? Certainly it used to – I seem to remember they got to £1 billion profits before Tesco (OK, may have been sales). No doubt they were part of the business lobby saying how bad Brexit would be for Britain.
But as the article shows they were never really committed to trading in Europe. I guess most EU capitals have (or have had) an M+S, but you don’t see them in other major cities, food or clothing stores.
With the exception of Tesco, our other larger retailers never bothered to step foot on the continent. And Tesco never tried in the western countries, only the former eastern bloc. But you’ll see French and German retailers in Spain, Italy, and many other parts. Lidl and Aldi have around 20% supermarket share, as well as the likes of Zara in clothing.
If the shopkeepers of the nation never made a serious effort to get European consumers, it’s perhaps not surprising that the ‘nation of shopkeepers’ made no effort to become European!
Tesco has over 150 stores in the Rep. of Ireland and contols somethng like a quarter of the grocery market. Not bad!
Yes but at the same time they have withdrawn from all other major global markets including China, Thaland, US.
The US grocery market is incredibly competitive. If you’re competing on price, you can’t beat Wal-Mart. And Fresh & Easy, Tesco’s oddly named entry couldn’t compete on price. British foodstuffs are very easy to find in the US, including at Wal-Mart, Kroger, Publix, all the big chains. Then there’s the Trader Joe’s and Whole Foods that carry lots of British foods.
Thai grocery stores haven’t competed in the US either, nor have Chinese or French or Italian, Polish, etc. Aldi has found a very small niche (upscale neighborhoods and they carry locally sourced foods with a little German cookie and cake aisle) that works perfectly for them but they are the exception, not the rule.
Indeed, what amazed me was that after 45 years of EU membership our “great British businesses” had almost no business on the continent. For example, the big insurance companies had no or terribly performing European businesses. Ditto the banks.
British retailers around the globe are a disaster, I witnessed the coming and going of M&S, Next, B&Q, New Look, Tesco, et al in China and all were a disaster. M&S was a particular dud as even the food section was highly limited to only ambient and dry foods, nobody could understand what the hell the clothes section was supposed to be.
British banks never needed to be in the EU as virtually all of their profitable activity could be managed through the City of London. Ditto insurance… you clearly have never heard of Solvency Two. The finance industry is just fine thank you very much. All that moved ‘back’ is the Euro clearing stuff which is big but not that big as to permanently damage the City. As one of the other posters mentioned, this is but a hiccup whilst things are worked out.
As for Tesco, where I live in the Far East, Tesco is the biggest supermarket chain used by everyone. It is the discount supermarket so attracts hoards and I do mean hordes of shoppers.
M&S out here though is very limited in its food choices but then again few people out here eat western food anyway. I get my extra strong tea bags there. I miss them.
When I visited Communist Yougoslavia just before easter 1982 in dubrovnik the best Store Was M&S!
On the rare occasions that I walk through an M&S clothes section, the drab uniformity of the products resembles that of Mao’s China. As such, I’m surprised they failed in China.
I don’t think of M&S as comparable to Zara, isn’t it a department store? Perhaps there are German department stores in Spain and Italy but I can’t think of any.
And it’s not a discount store like Zara and Aldi and Lidl. All 3 are in the US. Notably the grocers all use US suppliers for produce and dairy, not German ones. And they are dirt cheap, although their main competition is Wal-Mart. Shoppers are bewildered by the Aldi cart procedure.
Le peuple n’a pas de British bangers.
Qu’ils mangent des andouillettes!
Just out of curiosity, do we now treat the EU as a ‘third country’? That is, make them complete forms to confirm they meet UK standards? Not suggesting we should, just curious.
No Sandwich is better than a Bad Sandwich.
What about their over ready meals?
Just out of curiosity, do we now treat the EU as a ‘third country’? That is, make them complete forms to confirm they meet UK standards? Not suggesting we should, just curious.
This sign really should just be simplified to read…….
Look what you rubes have done.
I see that M&S are now realizing that HMG’S cheap food policy isn’t popular with the EU. It was fine when chinese chicken breasts were imported and duty paid in Southampton, but now that Asian chicken, duck, pork & prawns don’t qualify for a quick transport over the channel, sourcing week become important. GB origin food qualifies – maybe that the brexit dividend!
Typical globalist whining.