Dear One Stop,

Dear One-Stop,

This week I found myself compelled to write an angry, nay, befuddled letter to yourselves. Obviously you know who you are, little chain of UK convenience shops with conveniently inflated prices found in over six hundred locations across these fair isles.

By your own admission your key focus is on “being the best in the neighbourhood for you”. Best. Worst. Let us not get stuck in such subjective terms. Local, however, seems to be a big tag line in your marketing gumph. Local, convenient, friendly- the corner shop equivalent of an approachable neighbour available for groceries and newspapers as well as a cuppa and a gossip over the garden fence. You pride yourselves on being able to help with those little essentials for the great festivities of our times too offering “plenty of choice for special occasions such as Christmas, Halloween and Bonfire night”. You’re like, one of the family! Yay for you.

So given all of these marvellously cuddly qualities you must have (otherwise it would be highly hypocritical of you to use them as marketing tools) it puzzles me that in the height of the apple harvest in your chosen country of operation you choose to stock this staple fruit item from Solvenia.
In a world becoming increasingly affected for the worse by carbon emissions you have chosen to favour produce that has travelled over a thousand miles to get to your little shelf in the Colchester North Station Rd store. Ever heard of a little place called Suffolk? They grow some very nice apples there. And at a push they could stock your most northerly outlet with only a 650 mile journey.
In a country fighting to avoid recession, where the economy is so ravaged it has had to cut support to many on benefits, reverse payrises for our NHS staff and leave thousands of twenty somethings living with their long suffering parents because the property market is now a black tie invite only affair- you, a ‘locally’ focused company would rather send your money to central Europe.

You may see my confusion here, One-Stop. Such a practice is in direct contradiction to your advertised ethos so yes, when I nipped out on my lunchbreak to procure a healthy snack to get me through work day and was presented with these sad, slightly dull looking globes of sugary fibre I was somewhat taken aback. Puzzled and a little angry, I felt a need to communicate with yourselves, to seek an explanation as to this bloody travesty that you are perpetrating against the farmers of this country and your customers who would rather support their own economy rather than one on the other side of the Alps.

In seeking contact information, I went to your website and was lucky enough to discover the answer to all of my above questions in one simple sequence of words: Subsidiary of Tesco.

Say no more. And expect to receive my money no more until you and your oppressive dark overlords stop slapping British farmers in the face by stocking old, over travelled and inferior produce.

Shame on you.

Love and kisses from Another Blogging Foodie xxxxxxx

*please note the author has never been to Slovenia and has nothing against them in principle, I’m sure it’s lovely there and I hope they enjoy their apples and any other local produce*