An Ethical Dilemma

Fairtrade products are good right? I'd say that's fairly universally acknowledged. After all it's about better prices, decent working conditions, land fair terms of trade for farmers and workers in the developing world.

And organic is pretty good too i'd say: sustainable farming practices, greater biodiversity and are being all round environmentally sound. That's good too.

So we should be supporting producers of Fairtrade and/ or organic products.

But what about when the producer of an organic and fairtrade products, in this case Green & Blacks, is owned by Cadbury's - they have just made their leading product line, Dairy Milk, Fairtrade in Australia and New Zealand, that's good too.

Looking at the Ethical Consumer Guide, Cadbury's don't appear too bad - either from the perspective of their Australian holding company, nor their parent company in the UK.

However, reading on, Cadbury is now owned by US giant Kraft, as a result of a recent high profile takeover. Those bad boys are a different proposition altogether: cited as payers of poor wages to coffee farmers, use of GM ingredients etc

So where do you draw the line? As I opened this post with, fairtrade and organic are good right? So how do you reconcile the support being provided to those farmers being paid under a fair trade scheme with the knowledge that the bottom line profits are going back to a behemoth multinational? Just think about the next time to tuck into your Vegemite on toast, or Mac n Cheese, or dunk an Oreo into your coffee.

New Feature - Unchained Locations

We've added a new feature to Brisbane Unchained, a map in the panel on the right. This shows featured 'Unchained' sources/ retailers that we have encountered in the course of this project.

As a side-panel it will always be available and will update as we identify more unchained outlets.

Groceries, West End Markets, The Powerhouse and Other Independents

Along with fuel, another difficult group of products to buy unchained is that of Groceries.

As with fuel, the market is controlled by a small number of retailers. In this case 70% market share (excludes convenience stores and other merchants e.g. fruit 'n' veg stores) resides with two dominant retailers: Coles and Woolworths.

It was really these two grocers that we had in mind when we set about undertaking this project. Their buying power and the means they undertake to secure favourable terms over their suppliers is well documented and I don't feel the need to repeat that here ad nauseum.

At a high level, some would see their ability to buy in bulk and at favourable terms as reflecting their prime positions at the head of the grocery service chain; others consider such dominance unhealthy and detrimental to local communities through the many smaller retailers they have invariably put out of business in their pursuit of dominant positions.

As with anything unchained, the consumer does have choice. Making alternative purchase decisions requires changes in habits and foregoing the apparent "convenience" of supermarkets with their longer opening hours and general accessibility.

Within the inner-West of Brisbane we are quite blessed with some good alternative sources of general groceries.

West End Markets
The West End Markets are set in the shade of the giant figs just a short hop from the Brisbane River. Selling food, fashion and limited amounts of general tat, the markets are a great source of unchained produce - much of it also organic. The website is very informative too - providing a small panel showing produce currently in season.

Jan Power's Famers' Markets
The Farmers' Markets operated by Jan Power have a regular schedule for the Greater Brisbane area. The markets we frequent most are those at the Powerhouse, New Farm on the 2nd and 4th Saturday of each month. The markets are easily accessible by public transport too with the CityCat stopping conveniently at New Farm Park - also a great place to take some of that lovely produce just purchased and share with friends!

Fundamentals
Fundies is a great store in Paddington, billing itself as "one of Australia's leading retailers of natural & organic foods, with 5 stores situated in the Northern Rivers area and Brisbane. At Fundies...we are very selective about what we sell, with strict quality control and commitment to sustainable agriculture.

Of course there are other independent retailers around, those highlighted here are just some of those easily accessible within the Brisbane area and are also that we frequent most often.

Fuel

One of the hardest items we have found to purchase unchained is fuel. That's not altogether surprising given 5 retailers between them have 87% market share [source: IBIS World Automative Fuel Retailing in Australia May 2010].

When you consider that within the remaining 13% are, what we would consider within our project, chains such as Matilda and 7-11, it's easy to see why buying unchained fuel is so difficult.

Major independent chains between them operate around 670 stores across Australia.

Amongst true independents, it wasn't possible to find too much information in the public domain. The report cited as a source earlier also yielded little in the way of substantive information.

It certainly is possible to find unchained fuel within Brisbane. Like with most other commodity items, doing so requires a change in consumer habits. The closest outlet to Brisbane CBD we have found is Bizzell's in Paddington. Being independent it has reduced opening hours, Monday-Friday 7am - 6pm.

There is an additional outlet along Kelvin Grove Road, we haven't as yet made it here to establish opening hours.

Unchained living perhaps not conducive to frugality

Today the little bear and I were going a bit stir crazy and bored, and for me the best method of combatting boredom is to spend money I don't have, then get stressed out about being poor. So we packed ourselves up in the car and headed off to Paddington's Green Precinct for a spot of righteous retail therapy. Also, remember yesterday that I said I needed pyjamas for the little one now it's getting a bit chilly - this was ostensibly the purpose of my wanderings, but really I just needed to get out the house and look at some lovely things.

We pottered along and in and out of a few places, all of which were small and independent. One was a retro clothes shop which I had to remove myself from sharpish as they were selling fur, which generally makes me want to copiously vomit everywhere. I had a slightly more successful trip to Biome, where I purchased The Complete Idiot's Guide to Green Cleaning, and some wild soapnuts. Apparently trying to live unchained brings out the even more rampant hippy in me... but I figured that trying out new things, and trying to make our own cleaning products can only help shed the shackles we live under... right?

I thought I'd pay lip service to my intentions to buy some pyjamas for the bear, and went into some BEAUTIFUL shops with just wonderful things for babies & children (Cocoon, Bliss EcoWear). Whilst undoubtedly independent and unchained, and places that I could happily have spent hours and hours and hundreds of dollars in, I had to frogmarch myself out pretty quickly. I found some lovely pyjamas for the little one, but I just couldn't justify spending $30-40 on something for her, when I had bought her last pair in K-Mart for $10. This is a quandry. I don't imagine there are many unchained independent clothes shops which sell cheap & cheerfuls out there. It's not like she's going to have to go naked, because we're only doing this for a month, but it does show that living independently might not necessarily also mean living frugally.

This also made me ponder that perhaps trying to live unchained is having some sort of knock on effect on us elsewhere - it seems to have morphed into also meaning trying to make ethical purchases: for instance, in our arbitrary rules we state that buying mass produced products from an independent retailer is OK, because we are supporting an unchained retailer. However, we seem to suddenly and spontaneously be trying to not purchase anything made by Nestle. The boycott of Nestle is well documented, and I won't go into it here, and it's something we've flirted with before, but it really requires tons of discipline and knowledge, because it does feel like Nestle manufacture or own everything in the world. Not sure how we'll go with this one, but I think it's interesting that this little project is kind of morphing into something else already.

Unchain my thoughts, set me free....

It can be hard to change your thought process about what you need to do/buy in a day when you are trying to live an unchained life. Last night I was trying out my new sewing machine for the first time, and had to drag our big kitchen table over to a different wall in order to access the plug socket. Stu said to me 'why don't you pop to Bunnings tomorrow to pick up an extension lead'. We both had to pause for a moment to work out why this just didn't seem right...

The weather has turned colder now in Brisbane, and we don't have much in the way of cover up clothing for the baby, so I caught myself thinking 'I'll just pop to K-Mart to get her some more pyjamas'. Another no-no. Now this one IS going to be tough - I don't want to be going to exclusive baby boutiques to buy jamas for a 4 month old, but I can't think of anywhere cheap and cheerful that isn't a chain. Hmmmm...

At some point also I need to shop for groceries. I took the little one for her jabs this morning and she has been a bit sad ever since, so I didn't have the heart today, but we're running out of excuses. Oh, and food.

Blogger in Vending Machine Scandal

So there was I thinking that i'd have a wee snack with my afternoon
cup of tea. The vending machine in the office was the obvious
convenient destination.

The usual item of choice is the Crunch Crisp - except it's made by
Nestle. OK how about a KitKat - goes great with a cup of tea....err
made by Nestle.

So a Snickers it was.....

But then I thought: who controls the vending machine? Upon closer
inspection: "Totalvend, a Division of Smith's". I knew that Smith's
was owned by Pepsico, a sure bet for a red flag on the Ethical
Consumer Guide. And yes, it is. For all manner of reasons.

As for the Snickers? Made by Mars. More red flags than at a Man Utd
match. It remains unopened on my desk. I'm going to offload it to a
colleague. Fact still remains I have purchased unethically. But at
least I am unformed and know for next time.

Ethical Consumer Guide

Some of the obvious outcomes of this undertaking are that it's making us think much more about business ownership models and the general provenance of consumer goods.

One useful aide we have stumbled across is the Ethical Consumer Guide from the Ethical Consumer Group. The Group states itself to be a "not-for-profit network set up to help facilitate more sustainable purchasing practices for the everyday consumer." Perfect!

The Guide itself is available in printed form but is also available as an iPhone app and is available as a reference tool via their website (see earlier link).

The Guide is exactly that - a Guide. If you choose - and remember as consumers choice is the greatest power we have - to use the Guide, I'd recommend reading up on the methodology of the Guide in order to understand how its ratings are derived. As an example Emma and I were surprised to learn that Ingham's were considered "Lesser Praise, No Criticism" by their legend. To us their intensive, factory farming, methods do not sit with our way of thinking sustainably and ethically.

I'll leave this post there. I'm not keen for this site to turn into a rant about sustainable farming practices - it's not about that and there are already plenty of resources on this. This is about two individuals trying to make the best choices possible and seeking to do this in a manner that is as independent i.e. "unchained" as possible.

Second Day, First Fail....?

Yesterday (May 2nd) we decided to head to Peregian Beach on the sunshine coast to catch up with some friends for the day. First though, we had to deal with a cat who was pissing blood (if I sound calm about this, it's because it's not that unusual an occurence for the big guy unfortunately). So off to the vet - because OF COURSE he has to wait til Sunday to need an emergency appointment. Brief moment of panic as I remembered what it is we're supposed to be doing this month - quickly allayed by confirming that my vet has only 3 locations. Plus I don't think that they are a franchise - more an independent with a few locations. Which is a massive relief, because trying to source a new vet for a cat that is pissing blood on a Sunday when he already goes to the only specialist cat vets in Brisbane would have been..... let's say frustrating...

So then on to our next task, something which would have seemed so easy 3 days ago but suddenly takes on a new twist when you're trying to do it unchained. We plugged in the details of where we needed to go to meet up with our friends, and set along happily on our way (we weren't quite singing the happy wanderer or anything, but you get the picture). I then had one of those crashing iceberg thoughts arranging in my head moments - the computer in the car reckoned we had 230kms left on our fuel, and the sat nav reckoned we had a 260km round trip. Now I knew that once we got on the motorway and engaged cruise control our fuel efficiency would be markedly improved, and we'd probably make it, but could not shake that yukky feeling... what if? Obviously having a 4 month old strapped in the back changes things a bit on the old decision making front too.

So we're on the road, we don't have a massive amount of fuel, we have a baby in the back, and we have phones which are about to die of battery death. We know of ONE independent fuel place near us, although there has been some robust debate between us about whether it is still in operation (because it turned out that I was wrong, we won't be covering that debate in detail). We head there - shut. Did I mention it's Sunday on a public holiday weekend? We fire up the phones, praying to the gods of small-portable-fantastic-electronic-devices-with-low-battery-levels-but-which-are-essential-when-searching-the-web-on-the-move. Googling 'independent petrol station brisbane' is a hiding to nothing - I'm guessing that independent petrol stations can't afford to spend loads of SEO consultants. I suddenly remember that I have in iphone app called 'GasBag' which gives petrol station locations - a quick click on there though just reveals a sea of all too familiar logos. However, further inspection reveals a few logos which are just a petrol pump - no corporate branding, nothing, and clicking on them reveals some names which are NOT familiar, one of which even includes the word 'independent' in the title.

To cut a long story short - did I mention that it's Sunday on a public holiday weekend?

We're pulled over, debating what to do. Neither of us want to give up on a trip to the coast on a sunny bank holiday weekend to see some good friends. Neither of us want to be so totally pathetic that we can't even manage 2 days before caving in to the chains, especially when no-one has even read the blog yet (where is everyone?). There's a place en route which has THE most promising name - Freedom Fuels, so we head there. As we pull in my heart sinks a little bit - it looks like...well... a PROPER petrol station. We hold our breath and google it - it kind of meets our rules. It's independently owned, it's 100% Australian owned, it sells fuel, it seems touchy feely (as touchy feely as a petrol station can).... but it has a TON of locations. This definitely is in breach of my arbitrary no more than 5 rule.

D'you know what though? This is the best we can do, and I don't feel bad about it. We should have been more organised and got our fuel a different day, but we didn't. We picked the only option that we really had that day, and we still did it to the best of our unchained abilities. And what we DID learn is that there are a TON of options out there for independent fuel, which is one of the things I was convinced was going to trip us up pretty quickly with this whole adventure. Also, living the unchained life means accepting that some companies just don't open on the days we expect them to now that we have this 24/7 consumer culture, and doing a bit more planning ahead.

So onwards and upwards, and lessons learnt all round. I don't really think it's a fail (perhaps I'm reframing), but might lead to a rule review...

A rule has been decided!

So, upon returning from the deli cafe at the Cat & Fiddle in Toowong having safely sourced some yummy coffees, we had another robust debate (I sense some of those on the horizon) about whether getting coffee from an independent (the cafe) that is manufactured by a chain (Merlo) is acceptable. Basically if the end retailer is independent, we think go ahead.

8 Hours in, and hit our first snag

As a rule on a weekend morning (and sometimes on a weekday morning, and sometimes just cos the day ends in Y) we treat ourselves to some coffee & croissants from the French Patisserie at our local shops (which are fortunately enough a little haven of lovely independents). HOWEVER! The French Patisserie, whilst being independently owned (as far as we can see) has 2 or 3 shops dotted around. Does this make it a chain? I think more than one shop means chain personally, but Stu reckons we can't think that way - otherwise we're ruling out too much stuff, and also how then do you support the local entrepreneur who wants to expand? Good point, but where do you draw the line....?

Welcome to Brisbane Unchained

Inspiration
Inspired by a blog post from Courier Mail food writer Natascha Mirosch and also by Dave Gorman's America Unchained, we (somewhat unoriginally) decided that for the month of May we should attempt to live an Unchained lifestyle.

What Does This Mean?
Basically in principal this means avoiding chains for everything: groceries, fuel, alcohol etc. It has also been mooted that we should shop as ethically as possible; reducing food miles, buying organic foodstuffs where possible, buying unchained too so products from large conglomerates etc could be out too.

The Rules
Much debate has been had about what constitutes a chain for us. Whilst it's easy to agree that Coles, Woolies etc are out, what does it mean for our favourite franchisees (I'm looking longingly at you Pizza Capers)? Also what does it mean for IGA? It's an independent chain of franchisees who are all nice and sell yummy food and are a bit.... well, nice? Can this really be an unchained month if we decide to include chains that we like? I think this is something we might have to work out along the way.... maybe our chaining instincts will kick in soon.

Mitigating Circumstances
We have my (Emma's) parents visiting us during May and whilst we shall attempt to influence their buying behaviours, we cannot necessarily guarantee that we be able to do so. They're old and a bit set in their ways! We also have a 3 month old daughter so sometimes we need to eat 'conveniently' at the end of what may have been a tiring day. This does not necessarily mean take-away (although once again, I'm looking longingly at you Pizza Capers) but could possibly mean a quick pasta 'n' sauce being knocked up to provide some sustenance.

What We Hope to Achieve?
Well we hope to prove, if only to ourselves, that it is possible to shop in a manner with consideration to the products being purchased. The original blog posting that inspired this commitment commented that 50% of off-sales in alcohol retailing are controlled by two organisations: Coles and Woolworths. Whilst, to us, these behemoths have a place in the retail service chain and do contribute significant amounts to the economy in terms of corporation tax and employment, there are plenty of other retailers in the local communities that contribute equally, if not more. Local stores tend to also then engage other service industries locally: accountants, other distributors and the benefits then flow through the local community further.

Supporting local stores will hopefully contribute to their survival and enable local stores to maintain a presence in local communities and not be driven out through excessive property rates which only larger chains can afford.

If anyone has read this far and sticks with us through the month - thanks! And if we then provide inspiration to others to undertake such an initiative then thank you on behalf of those recipients of your custom!