IELTS Essay: Supermarkets

Sample Answer

Some feel that supermarkets today sell too many imported products compared to the number of locally produced ones. In my opinion, this is a result of changes in consumer tastes and it is a negative overall.

The main cause behind this phenomenon is an exponential shift among consumers. Over the last century advances in sea and air transport have allowed supermarkets to import products from all over the world. As a result, an individual living in New England can try exotic fruits like mangos and pomegranates that cannot normally be grown in a four season climate. Once a person tries a new food and enjoys it, they are more likely to sample other new fruits and vegetables. They then recommend those foods to others and shifts in taste quickly become mainstream and irreversible.

This change is negative as it hurts local farmers and the environment. Local producers must now compete with large companies that source products such as bananas at lower prices and undercut farmers. Consumers naturally buy the cheaper products and the result is that local farmers often cannot survive without government subsidies or must close their operations. Moreover, this development leads to greater consumption of fossil fuels. Imported products allow consumers to shop out of season, for example eating asparagus year round, but this requires shipping products globally and increasing the burning of fossil fuels involved in transportation.

In conclusion, though supermarkets now enable shoppers to have more varied palates, this poses tremendous risks for local producers and the environment. Therefore, tariffs on imports should be high.