Agricultural Matters scares me so I'll ask it here...

neilo

Member
Mixed Farmer
Location
Montgomeryshire
Every burger served in a UK McDonalds has been made in one plant, in Scunthorpe. Their centralized business model has led the cultural cleansing of the High Street. They purchase 7000 cattle each week. 13% of the 2.6 million cattle slaughtered each year. They are part of the cartel that controls UK beef production. Have a read about Dawn Meats, try and work out where your big mac cash ends up, and whether the exchequer sees any of it.
https://www.wikicorporates.org/wiki/Queally_Group

That scale and centralised distribution is what makes them cheap. Cheap is what the consumer demands, and votes for with it’s feet.

All change must be consumer driven, as you keep telling us.;)
 

neilo

Member
Mixed Farmer
Location
Montgomeryshire
There are folks on here who will tell you that the success of McDonalds is the free market at work. They are wrong, because there is no such thing as a free market. The free market is an academic concept that only exists in economics text books. The success of McDonalds has been funded by the taxpayer at every turn.
The taxpayer has paid for the refuse technicians to collect the detritus from urban litter bins and rural verges.
The taxpayer has underwritten the contracts to build the incinerators and landfill sites to dispose of that crap.
The taxpayer has built the motorways to haul the buns, burgers and gherkins the length and breadth of the country.
The taxpayer pays for the welfare system that tops up the income of the burger flippers on the minimum wage.
Your big mac isn't as cheap as you think it is. It costs all of us a fortune.

What tosh!
McDonalds move stuff around around the country on lorries, like everyone else. Those lorries pay taxes and pay duty on every litre of fuel they guzzle, just the same as every other lorry on the road does. The taxpayer isn’t subsidising McD’s distribution.

McD’s don’t throw the litter out on the street & onto road verges, irresponsible members of the public do. The taxpayer isn’t subsidising McD’s in paying for binmen, it’s paying to clear up after idiots.

The consumer has chosen to make McD’s a successful global business, for some unfathomable reason…
 

Charlie Gill

Member
Location
Kent
I was going to post just the same thing earlier.👍

One thing that there certainly isn’t a shortage of is places to eat out. There are far more outlets now than there were before McDonalds arrived.

I won’t defend their centralised systems or their use of corporation tax loopholes, but I also won’t try to blame them for the downfall of the high street like some big bogey man.
Enormous out of town retail parks and Internet shopping would be my bogey man.
 

delilah

Member
That scale and centralised distribution is what makes them cheap. Cheap is what the consumer demands, and votes for with it’s feet.

All change must be consumer driven, as you keep telling us.;)

It isn't cheap, it is cheap at the point of sale. All centralized food systems are subsidized by the taxpayer.

I have never said that change must be 'consumer driven', but rather 'demand driven'. There is an important difference. No person is an island. It is very difficult for an individual consumer to do anything other than make rational decisions based on convenience and price. If you live on an estate where the only food options within walking distance are Tesco and McDonalds, what are you to do ?

Demand is a function of two factors. Yes, micro-choices, those of the individual, but also macro-choices, those made by policy. Every decision made by Government on food policy, for decades, has been in favour of centralization and against localization. We could make a long, long list of those policies, but no need we all know what they are. When was the last time you heard Tesco squeak about a Government policy ? Those policy choices need to change, and they will once UK ag wakes up to who its real allies, and enemies, are.
 

Henarar

Member
Livestock Farmer
Location
Somerset
There are folks on here who will tell you that the success of McDonalds is the free market at work. They are wrong, because there is no such thing as a free market. The free market is an academic concept that only exists in economics text books. The success of McDonalds has been funded by the taxpayer at every turn.
The taxpayer has paid for the refuse technicians to collect the detritus from urban litter bins and rural verges.
The taxpayer has underwritten the contracts to build the incinerators and landfill sites to dispose of that crap.
The taxpayer has built the motorways to haul the buns, burgers and gherkins the length and breadth of the country.
The taxpayer pays for the welfare system that tops up the income of the burger flippers on the minimum wage.
Your big mac isn't as cheap as you think it is. It costs all of us a fortune.
everyone takes government subsidy even McDonalds
 

SFI - What % were you taking out of production?

  • 0 %

    Votes: 80 42.1%
  • Up to 25%

    Votes: 67 35.3%
  • 25-50%

    Votes: 30 15.8%
  • 50-75%

    Votes: 3 1.6%
  • 75-100%

    Votes: 3 1.6%
  • 100% I’ve had enough of farming!

    Votes: 7 3.7%

Red Tractor drops launch of green farming scheme amid anger from farmers

  • 1,294
  • 1
As reported in Independent


quote: “Red Tractor has confirmed it is dropping plans to launch its green farming assurance standard in April“

read the TFF thread here: https://thefarmingforum.co.uk/index.php?threads/gfc-was-to-go-ahead-now-not-going-ahead.405234/
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