Sainsbury's Essay

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The taste for variety from the British eating Indian, Chinese and Italian cuisine developed a longing for consuming them at home (Panayi, 2014). The ingredients became increasingly more available after the end of rationing in 1954. Together with the increase in disposable income, advancements in technology and widespread car ownership resulted in the start of the British supermarket.
In the past people were helped to find what food they wanted and told where to pay but by the mid-1950s Sainsbury’s, like Tesco had converted all their stores to self-service. Prices of food were driven down and the number of smaller independent shops went down as these shops were able to provide variety and freedom that was previously unimaginable. Sainsbury’s claims to have opened the first British supermarket, the biggest in Europe at the time and was based in London. This ended the traditional forms of delivering goods and Tesco also opened their first supermarket in 1956 in Essex. Supermarket culture took hold of Britain with its ever-increasing range of goods and consumption as a result …show more content…

This still affects how the farmers grow their crops to the demand for certain goods today. For example poultry was originally too expensive in Britain and required specific skills for preparation and refrigerated storage space. Even Butchers did not sell it and focused on red meats instead. Poultry was the ideal product for the retail format of shops such as Sainsbury’s. They committed themselves to transforming the factory processing and intensive rearing of poultry in Britain. They were able to persuade farmers to invest in chicken houses by guaranteeing revenue and as a result facilitating a high level of capital expenditure. This demand for poultry that was created can be represented by poultry being almost a quarter of all British meat consumption by 1990 (Belasco and Horowitz,

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