I think it is fair to say the country is in crisis, though responding to the COVID-19 pandemic. Local people are finding supermarket shelves are often sparsely stocked and people, people who are frightened, are panic buying and trying to stockpile.

One thing you may have noticed is that prices are rising, often sharply.

However, behind the scenes there are people, whole families in fact, who are terrified they will loose everything. These are the people who have put it all on the line to own and operate independent businesses.

The corporations will do what they always do. They will hold the Government to ransom and continue to syphon large amounts of money out of local areas to pay faceless executives and shareholders. They Government still appear reluctant to implement any sort of price controls. In short, small independently owned businesses are being squeezed out of the market. Many of them will not survive through to the end of the pandemic and control over supply will be consolidated into the hands of the few.

Can you prevent this?

Yes, by changing your buying behaviour.

You may ask why? When we get back to what we called normality, and we will, we will need a thriving local economy to rebuild our communities and way of life. By buying from locally owned companies the money stays in our local community and keeps the roof over the heads of people from our community. You may think that smaller, local companies would charge you more, that can often be a misconception. Locally owned companies, particularly the ones who manufacture the products they sell, can sometimes compete on price, or even be cheaper because there are fewer middle-men in their supply chain.

We need to practice a little bit of preparedness and think beyond the current crisis. Do we want a range of independently owned and operated businesses serving our community, or do you want to simply hand it over to a faceless corporation?