I thought therefore I would start a series of posts detailing how the free market, in response to pressure from the consuming public, can, has or will solve the issues and problems facing the nation. I shall start small with a problem that seems to come and go fairly frequently onto the political agenda: food waste.
It seems at least every few months the latest figures of how much food we waste hits the headlines followed by a stream of bandwagon jumpers trying to crack down on it. The most frequently attacked cause of this is the demon known as Buy One Get One Free or the rather unappealing sounding BOGOF. The last flurry of this came in Spring last year. First the EU issued a directive to ban them. Soon after (and rather predictably) the Lib Dems called for them to be banned. And finally the Government followed suit in their Defra Food 2030 plans.It was of course all completely unnecessary. Unless you believe in a government knows best, paternalist state then the Government should only act on issues that are important enough to their electorate. Fortunately the electorate usually overlaps fairly heavily with the consuming public. This means that while the government should take notice of the public they will not be the only ones. Producers will also be paying keen attention in order to find new ways to attract consumers to their products rather than those of their competitors.
This is exactly what has happened with this example. Tesco has noticed that throwing away so much food is important enough to their current and potential customers and so they have come up with a solution. Rather than scrapping BOGOF which would have hit their customer's wallets in an already difficult time they have simply delayed the "one free". Under new plans if you buy one item then you can either take the second at the same time or pick it up the following week. The so called BOGOF later plan will no doubt drive more people through Tesco's doors as well as reducing food waste and undoubtedly forcing the other supermarkets to follow suit.
So there you have it. Rather than legislating to solve a problem it is far easier to let the market do it for you. The same result is achieved but you do it without making life harder for poorer families or wasting millions drafting and enforcing the legislation. Win-win.
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2 comments:
Er, I fail to see how this 'market solution' will make a difference to food waste... if things are being sold BOGOF, it is presumably because the supermarket wants rid of them. If someone doesn't take the BOGOF item that week, it stays on the shelf, and is eventually dumped. In the meantime, the shopper loses their receipt/forgets about it/goes to a different supermarket & never collects their second BOGOF item.
The amount of food waste stays exactly the same (indeed, its slightly higher because customers are more likely to make use of unwanted/slightly out of date food than supermarkets, which will go as far as destroying produce rather than giving it away) but Tesco's profits go up.
In other words, this isn't a 'market solution', just anotehr way for supermarkets to make more money.
"if things are being sold BOGOF, it is presumably because the supermarket wants rid of them"
I would refute this claim entirely. While this is generally accepted as the origin of BOGOF deals they have long since stopped being a means to shift end of the line stock and are now almost exclusively a promotional tool.
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