Harry Wallop | The Spectator columnists & writers

When you pick up a packet of meat from the supermarket and it says 'Willow Farms', what is the image you conjure up in your mind? Do you imagine the chickens reared on this farm happily pecking around a thatched cottage, searching for grubs in a field that rolls gently down to a river flanked by weeping willows? Of course you don’t. You’re shopping in Tesco and you’re not that stupid. The country’s biggest retailer (and the UK’s biggest private sector employer) is not buying any of its fresh produce from small-scale farmers, especially not its chickens. Some of you, however, might reasonably expect that Willow Farm exists. That it has a geographical presence -- even if it is on an industrial scale. Even that is a little optimistic.

Waterstones deserves to be judged by its bookshop cover-up

Let’s get one thing clear: bookshops are a good thing. Waterstones -- even putting aside the abandonment of its apostrophe -- is a good thing. James Daunt, the man who has turned Waterstone’s from a basket case into a profitable enterprise, is a good thing. But what the company has done in Southwold, Rye and Harpenden is naughty. And it’s more than just a storm in an overpriced Emma Bridgewater teacup. Waterstones has opened up shops that purport to be both local and independent, when they are neither. In Southwold, the branch is called Southwold Books, in Rye it’s The Rye Bookshop and in Harpenden, Harpenden Books. The colour-scheme, layout, and signs all look as if they belong to independent shops and no reference to Waterstones can be found in the shop.

Could Brexit mean cheaper food? Don’t open the prosecco yet

'Brexit to chop food bills', said the headline in the Sun on Sunday this weekend. The paper ran some research from the campaign group Leave Means Leave, which claimed food prices could fall by hundreds of pounds a year if tariffs are axed after Brexit. Though nobody knows what deal we will strike with trading partners once we leave the EU, it’s worth exploring the basis of Leave Means Leave’s research. It hopes we will enter into a completely tariff-free world. No more eye-watering taxes slapped on the likes of Tate & Lyle’s imported sugar cane, which caused the company to lose £20 million last year. All that new-world wine and South American beef, which attracts a tariff starting at 13 per cent, should suddenly be free to enter Britain, free of any restrictions.

Higher prices are the only way of dealing with Britain’s food waste problem

Food waste is on the increase. British households are throwing the equivalent of 500 meals into the bin every year. Understandably, there has been a lot of hand-wringing. Baroness Parminter, the Liberal Democrat's environment spokeswoman (the party has so few MPs its environment spokeswoman sits in the Lords), declared: 'We need legislation to make real progress in changing behaviours and cutting waste.' No we don’t. We just need another recession. An increase in food waste is possibly the clearest sign that food poverty is declining and most people have never had it so good when it comes to filling their stomachs. First, the figures. Household food waste in the UK has increased from seven million tonnes in 2012 to 7.

Banning shops from opening on Boxing Day is a terrible idea

Britain was once a nation of shopkeepers. But one wonders for how much longer. As if the combination of Amazon, councils’ parking charges and above-inflation business rate rises wasn’t bad enough, we now have a petition. Of course, we do. The petitions wants all large shops to be shut on Boxing Day, as they are on Christmas Day. It argues that the people who work in shops toil very hard in the run up to Christmas. This is true. It then argues, 'retail workers [should] be given some decent family time to relax and enjoy the festivities like everyone else'. Why? Why should the government legislate to ensure we can all relax? Because this is an 'Up The Workers' petition, it has attracted a large amount of support: 230,000 backers on Change.

The change to Toblerone bars is an act of desecration

When the history of capitalism is written, November 8 2016 will deserve a footnote. No, not the date the 45th president of the United States was elected, but the day Mondelez, the giant US confectionery company, changed the shape of the Toblerone bar. This may sound hyperbolic. But the altering of Toblerone’s distinctive silhouette is the latest act of vandalism perpetrated by Mondelez on its stable of chocolate bars, and symptomatic of a wider malaise within some of the great consumer companies operating within Britain, many of which seem hell-bent on destroying the very foundations of what made them such enviable profit-making machines in the first place. First, Toblerone. It is a slightly over-sweet, milk chocolate bar with bits of nougat bits.

Which? is turning into Britain’s overbearing nanny

Which? was once upon a time known as the Consumers Association, and it used to do a sterling job of explaining which washing machine to buy and how to avoid being ripped off at a bureau de change. But the charity now seems to have become less interested in fighting consumers’ corner and more interested in being Britain’s nanny-in-chief. This morning it has rounded on supermarkets -- once again -- for promoting obesity. Its research has found that special offers and promotions in supermarkets tend to be used to push sugary drinks, chocolate and breakfast cereals rather than carrots and cucumbers. Its researchers found that of the 77,165 promotions they looked at, 53 per cent involved less healthy foods – those high in fat, saturates, sugar or salt, compared with 47 per cent of healthier products.

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