One of the really useful and informative books I came across recently helped me to understand more deeply how our shopping habits impact on our world. Here is my interview with Ute Kuhlmann who wrote “Happiness in a Handbasket – Buy Local, the practical guide.”
Elma Pollard: I was a little confused as the title of the book made me think it was about market shopping, but it's not really.
Ute Kuhlmann: No, it's about buying local at supermarkets, department stores, health stores AND at markets.
Elma Pollard: Yes it's essentially about supporting local products and becoming aware of the transport footprint of your shopping – and the impact on the local employment dilemma.
Ute Kuhlmann: I couldn't pass up on the pun with the handbasket, because buying local is such a convenient things to prevent things from going to hell in a ...
Elma Pollard: Ok, now I get it.
Ute Kuhlmann: I like that, the local employment dilemma. Yes, for some reason economists think that globalisation is the way to solve all problems. If we don't support local jobs, how will we create and keep skills in the country?
a good social conscience
Elma Pollard: You have a good social conscience which I enjoyed. You don't promote jobs for jobs' sake. What do you mean there?
Ute Kuhlmann: It's about decent work. There is no point in creating (or supporting) jobs which don't pay sustainable wages or expose workers to toxins and have horrible working conditions. Many of the textiles which SA retailers import are created in exactly such conditions in Bangladesh, India etc.
Elma Pollard: Yes but knowing what the conditions were like where your products were manufactured is another story.
Ute Kuhlmann: Of course. Yet the further away it happens, the less chance you have to ask the question – and of course the bigger the brand is that you are buying from. Local brands are often small enough that you can speak to the owner and can ask those questions. If goods are sold through a retailer, you need to start quizzing Woolies, Mr Price etc.
Elma Pollard: Ok, so if it's locally made the chances are better that you can find out. And your book also explains a lot of local brands and their ethics. This was truly informative – well done!
products with a story
Ute Kuhlmann: Thanks! Yes, local is very much about 'products with a story', no matter if it is foods, textiles, beds or bicycles. People are very honest what they manage to make locally and what they have to buy in from overseas. I also had conversations with people who say they can't get the quality they are looking for in RSA, but that's nonsense. What they mean is the quality for that price, it's often about the margins and the mark-ups involved.
Elma Pollard: Interesting the link – we like to publish those stories in the Green Times.
Ute Kuhlmann: The amazing thing is that there are so many people in South Africa who are passionate about creating things locally.
Elma Pollard: I often say are you focused on economy or ecology – you have to take a principle decision. And when it comes to economy it's not that you have to pay more, but quite simply amass less.
Ute Kuhlmann: Amass less, buy better quality, which local often is, but people only see the bigger price tag. They don't take into account that it lasts longer.
Elma Pollard: And empowers the nation, and brings peace and prosperity and, and ... we need to think a bit more long term.
Ute Kuhlmann: It's also the difference between 'food' and what the food INDUSTRY sells as such. You pay a lot for conveniently packed things which have no nutrition and practically no flavour.
Elma Pollard: There are just so many blind spots still tripping us up.
Ute Kuhlmann: Yes, prosperity of the mind and soul as well. People forget how soul destroying it is to be unemployed.
Elma Pollard: And how soul destroying is mindless shopping – I don't understand this robotic behaviour.
it's all about happiness
Ute Kuhlmann: Well, it's all about happiness. I also chose that title for my book to be a play on those masses of self-help books. Only 'Happiness' is a 'shelf-help' book...
Elma Pollard: Nice!
Ute Kuhlmann: If we can create jobs where people are creating things of meaning instead of just earning wages to be able to buy other things, they get empowered.
Elma Pollard: Yes I love the Fair Trade movement – very few locals know about this.
Ute Kuhlmann: It will slowly filter through. Cadbury is using fair traded cocoa now in their chocolate.
Elma Pollard: The dilemma with fresh produce sometimes being cheaper when imported was an interesting eye opener. What's that all about?
Ute Kuhlmann: The EU and the US spend a lot of money on subsidies for agriculture. Hence you will find some imported foods which are cheaper than local ones. Not because local is uncompetitive, but because the competition is skewed. The same is now happening with the cheap chicken imports from Brazil...
Elma Pollard: And how that impacts on local producers...
local producers get squeezed by retailers
Ute Kuhlmann: The local producers get squeezed by the retailers. Fresh produce does not have large profit margins and the retailers are paying farmers as little as possible for their produce, plus they reject anything that doesn't fit the supermarket look and only pay suppliers 3 months down the line....
And of course, transport costs are just never taken into account because we never pay for the environmental costs of using fossil fuels. It's the environment which pays for that...
Elma Pollard: Oh we do pay too, don't we – in weather, in water shortages, in insurance costs, in the growing poor... but I know what you mean. I always say we ARE the environment. There is no division.
Ute Kuhlmann: Yes, of course we are the environment. But we don't feel how we are paying for our behaviour at the cashiers and that's why we can compartmentalise it and ignore it.
Elma Pollard: Does every packet have to state whether it's local or imported or how will we know?
Ute Kuhlmann: In terms of food and textile laws, every packed food item and every garment (including shoes) already needs to give its country of origin on the label.
Elma Pollard: Does that go for fresh fruit too?
Ute Kuhlmann: If it's a 'foodstuff' it needs to be declared.
Elma Pollard: So if it doesn't say imported from so and so we can assume it is a local fruit?
Ute Kuhlmann: If there are LABELS and they say 'Product of South Africa' you can assume that. It's best to assume nothing when it comes to local and import. If it's fresh and in season in South Africa, chances are it's local.
Elma Pollard: And with loose fruit how do we know?
Ute Kuhlmann: Ask the staff? Look at the price? Check if it's grown in RSA and in season? There are some fruit which seem to be routinely imported, eg. from Israel etc.
Elma Pollard: Then you also said 'there is local and there is local,' what do you mean?
Ute Kuhlmann: What I mean is that things don't necessarily come from a farm or factory around the corner from you. South Africa is a big country. If you are looking for 'local' in the regional sense, you need to change your shopping habits.
Elma Pollard: That's when you shop at markets.
cut out the middlemen
Ute Kuhlmann: Buy directly from the producer; buy from co-ops who distribute from the region. Find out what the regional cheeses are and who makes them.
Elma Pollard: Or organic box deliveries.
Ute Kuhlmann: In terms of other products: Get to know the manufacturers in your area, clothes designers, bag makers, soap makers etc.
Elma Pollard: That is such a lovely personal way to shop! And then you refer to the terrible food wastage?
Ute Kuhlmann: The problem with fresh food is getting it from the farm to the fork. There are way too few farmers’ markets in South Africa where producers can sell directly to customers.
Elma Pollard: How do you find out who the manufacturers are?
Ute Kuhlmann: You can ask shops, but you have to be prepared to keep at it...
Elma Pollard: Yes and we are surrounded by farms here, but mostly wine which is truly not a necessary food.
Ute Kuhlmann: If farmers have to sell through retailers, things go to a central depot, often a NATIONAL depot (how crazy is that). And then they get distributed from there across the nation.
Elma Pollard: Nuts – we have to source the farms and go visit – this is great fun.
Ute Kuhlmann: So of course there is lots of food that gets wasted in that distribution. And a lot of small scale farmers are not linked in to the distribution chains in the first place.
Elma Pollard: often farmers also deliver to such interested customers when they come to the city – and then you can share with your friends.
Ute Kuhlmann: Yes, that is a great way to buy in 'ethically' reared meats.
Elma Pollard: SO important – and milk too, very important.
Ute Kuhlmann: Yes, the dairy INDUSTRY drives me nuts. Many vegetarians have no idea how cows suffer for milk products.
Elma Pollard: I visited a family member's dairy farm a few years ago – I vowed never to use milk again. Sadly I have not kept my word. Everyone should go and visit one.
Ute Kuhlmann: We grow a lot of food in the Cape, although Cape Town seems determined to rather have property developments than food growing happening.
Elma Pollard: The Philippi vegetable farmers issue is a case in point. So in your book you then teach us on food labelling and brand for brand you have researched their source and ethics – huge job. I will have to take this book along when I go shopping. Ideally you create an app so one can just scan the product and get the details.
Ute Kuhlmann: The book's website www.proZA.co.za is a good start and I would like to see it grow. It's open to anyone to list further local products.
Elma Pollard: Oh that's great – I must start using that. Of course one could access that via our phone in the shop.
Ute Kuhlmann: Yes, it's built to work on a device any size, phone, tablet, desktop you name it. You just won’t get pictures if you use your phone, but it's quick and useful to find information.
Elma Pollard: Glad that you discussed the importance of consumer pressure. I always encourage people to ask, even if they know the person will not know the answer. Before long they will register that 'the customers are asking this and that ..." it actually works.
Ute Kuhlmann: Yes, it does. Asking works. Taking your money elsewhere works. And with all those loyalty cards around, the shops can see exactly what preference people have. If it shows up mainly local products, they will pay attention.
Elma Pollard: Thank you for a really cool book. With this in hand you truly cannot say you don't know...it goes a long way to informing us and enlightening the blind spots in our brains. Where can our readers get hold of one?
Ute Kuhlmann: The book retails through the Ethical Co-op . It also sells from the Book Lounge in Cape Town and from Blank Books at the Salt River Arcade. And if you email me at ute@proZA.co.za, I also post them to people.
Elma Pollard: Any give-aways for our readers?
Ute Kuhlmann: I'd happy to give copies to the first 3 people who email me each three favourite local products not listed on the website yet.
Elma Pollard: Read more on the website www.proZA.co.za. Ute, before we close, you hail from Germany originally? What brings you here?
Ute Kuhlmann: I came here to study and fell in love with Cape Town and my now husband (although not necessarily in that order). And the decision to settle here was because my feeling is that South Africa is moving, is prepared to change and look at old habits and discard them and is open to new things. Germany has a great baseline of environmental awareness but things are also quite institutionalised and it is difficult to not become a cog in the system.
Elma Pollard: Lovely motivation. Thank you for staying – we need people like you.
By Elma Pollard
- markets
- fresh
- food
- organic
- produce
