Monday, January 28, 2008

Adam York - Ethical Grocer


How old are you?
44

What’s your occupation and who do you work for?
Grocer, Buyer and Veg Grower; Unicorn Grocery Ltd, Manchester and Glebelands Market Garden Ltd, Sale.

How long have been doing this?
15 years

What is it about your job that makes it ethical?
Preoccupation with feeding the public well and earning a living in a way that enables me to sleep at night.

What’s the best bit about your job?
Seeing quality fruit and veg arrayed in front of appreciative customers. Trading and making deals over new supply. Seeing large team of fellow members pull together.

What’s the worst thing?
Dealing with the fallout from laissez-faire New Labour and seeing some of the ugly stuff from the 1980s come to fruition.

What have the last 12 months been like for you?
Tough retail competition, harsh Summer conditions in 2007, trying to keep up with the rapid global changes taking place as Western Capitalism slips away...

What were you doing before this?
Bringing up my son/part-time jobs

What was your very first full-time job?
Watford Gap services, wearing Captain Scarlett hats and getting very hot!

What advice would you give to someone wishing to embark on the same sort of work as you?
Be determined, gain experience with others and get on with it. Remember if it goes wrong it really is better to die on your feet than live on your knees. While you retain a sense of humour you still have power.

Have you got any plans for the next 12 months you’d like to share with us?
Aquire land for more food production, read more good stories, go dancing more, nuture more enthusiastic traders and innovators, learn how to sail properly.

What do you do to relax?
Get out of urban madness. Spend time with people doing different things.

Who do you live with?
Partner, housemates+ vicious terrier.

Whereabouts do you live?
Whalley Range (post Smiths version).

If you were Prime Minister, what’s the very first thing you would do?
Accept that inequality of wealth/relative wealth matter a lot. Pursue policy agenda based on this and trying to make quality of life improve for the greatest number of people.

As cheap and easily available oil is expected to run out in the next couple of decades, what do you think will be the predominant form of transport in 2027?
Shank’s Pony, stay fit. A smooth road needs asphalt needs oil. Expect big changes soon.

Have you got any guilty carbon secrets?
Wanting to torch Tesco HQ?

What have you done that you were most proud of?
Tried to stick to my principles and the values I was brought up with. Finding that pioneering eco writers of the 1970s have been vindicated and I was right to be inspired by them. Resisting the complacency and materialistic dross of much about me, maybe doing some manual work keeps you grounded?

What single issue are you most concerned about in the world at large?
Imminent likelihood of mass starvation globally.

Which person in the public eye do you most admire and why?
Alan Simpson MP(!) Getting on with eco-projects and speaking out consistently against New Labour globalistas.

What’s your website address?
www.glebelandsmarketgarden.co.uk
www.unicorn-grocery.co.uk

What are your three favourite other websites of the moment?
www.countercurrents.org peak oil tab, Peter Goodchild articles particularly. www.independent.co.uk business comment.
http://resonancef.com/ listen for tunes.

No comments: