Н.А. Зелинская ENGLISH-SPEAKING COUNTRIES

Convenience culture includes food from around the world
The influence of other countries' foods and dishes is particularly obvious in
where we choose to go out to eat and what takeaway and convenience food
we buy.
The UK, as with many other countries, has a convenience food culture –
our lives are getting more busy and hectic, meaning that we often have to
eat quickly. This is matched by the availability of ready packed and
takeaway meals, most of which have their origins in cuisines from around
the world – Italian pasta and pizzas, Indian and Pakistani curries, and
Chinese dishes are perhaps the most popular, followed by Mexican, Thai
and Japanese.
Where do we buy our food?
We also like convenience when we are buying our food – the so-called ‘big
five’ supermarket chains in the UK now account for about 70% of the food
retail market here. This isn’t surprising given that on average a store such
as Sainsbury’s offers tens of thousands of different items on its shelves.
Sales of convenience food were worth £11bn in 2001 in the UK and are
estimated to grow by 33% in the next ten years. Customers are also offered
incentives such as reward schemes, easy parking and long opening hours
(in large cities 24 hour opening is common) to fit in with busy lifestyles.
Local shopping
However, the other 30% of the market is made up of local shops such as
Farmers Pride in Longsight, Manchester. They offer a good range of fresh
fruit and vegetables, cured hams, cooked meats, and Irish groceries –
Longsight has an Irish community dating back to immigrants coming to
work on the Manchester Ship Canal and so some of the customers of
Farmers Pride are older people who are very loyal to Irish products.
The owner Paul Gregson has been in the food business since 1972 when he
started working for a local Manchester chain of supermarkets called
Liptons. Since then he says that the variety of foods available has increased
tenfold and there has been a disappearance of seasonal food – now fruit and
vegetables can be imported at any time of year.
When asked about competition from supermarkets Paul said that small
shops have had to specialise in order to keep their customers and get new
ones and the quality of the food is often better as a result. This doesn’t
mean that customers get a more limited choice – on the day the picture was
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