Power to the consumer

Meal times have never been so sad, writes Rural Affairs Editor Nathan Rous. Forget the emblematic fish and chips with all its vinegary pomp or Sunday roast with all the trimmings, Britons have well and truly lost their appetite.

We may be swept up in the national euphoria of Olympic gold but our dinner plates have all the cheer of Iraq's medal table. With food inflation forcing the Bank of England to grind its golden fillings, the pressure on consumers to slash their shopping bills has turned food into farce.

We've become supermarket sliders, ditching our brand of choice to punch below our weight and grab the bargains.

But why are we doing this? Why is it always the consumer who has to cut their cloth? Why aren't the retailers digging deep into their vast bank balances to keep us in the manner to which we are accustomed?

As far as I can see, the consumer gets shafted whichever way the economy goes. If it's boom the supermarkets take our affluence as a sign to increase prices knowing we can all afford it; if it's bust they blame higher production costs and ask us to dig deep all the same.

Well, things are going to change my friends and it's going to get interesting in the next few months. So much so that consumer-power could well force the retailers to realise that we're neither a bottomless pit nor fools who are easily parted with the hard stuff.

I caught up with county food champion Rob Ward last week following his three-month tour of the globe as Nuffield scholar, searching out solutions to the growing problem of rising food prices.

Rob, who runs Greenfields Farm Shop in Telford,has some tough words for the retailers who take us all for granted, whether it's your local farm shop or neighbourhood hypermarket.

"There is no hiding place for average; by that I mean all average products, services, locations and staff," he says.

"We about to enter a period of the most significant change in food retailing since the introduction of self-service supermarkets. Small changes are not going to save retailers. It is time to realign themselves with a whole new relevance to what consumers want."

Rob has highlighted a number of critical changes in consumer behaviour, each of which will force retailers to reassess the way they deliver their service.

• Locally grown - this used to give shops a point of difference but now it's mainstream.
• Wake me up - merchandising: very few retailers are really delivering inspirational displays of food.
• PradaMark - it's cool to shop at Primark as shopping around is the new virtue.
• Grow your own - this is biggest growth trend in the garden centre world and should not be resisted.
• Value layering - people's perception of what they can afford has been lowered; what was a regular purchase will become a rare treat and they will not think twice about buying it from someone else.
• Anti-packaging - over-packaged food is as passé as last year's designer dress.

Rob concludes with a sobering warning. "Retailers beware, our consumers are changing their buying habits a great deal faster than you think.

"By acting now, you have a fighting chance to avoid being average - the first challenge for anyone running a retail outlet is realising that you need to make this change."

Naturally Rob hopes to impassion retailers into delivering these services for he wants independent stores to fight hard against the multi-nationals in their push for our pound, but his insight also helps us consumers know exactly what we should be expecting.

We shouldn't always be the ones staring deep into our wallets and wondering where the next treat is coming from; ditching the luxury brands in favour of a budget alternative.

It's time retailers realised that we're not a bottomless pit which blindly turn up on their doorstep each and every week.

We DO have a choice and by exercising that we have the power.

It's time to put a smile back on the face of dinner time.