He weighed your meat, your rice, your fruit and veg, and your vinegar and then he wrapped them all for you in brown paper. A godsend to Jack and Jill but stories told through the generations will tell you that this man was under immense pressure. He was the 'One Stop' shop for the whole town and supplied all your culinary needs as well as your coal for heating, haberdashery needs and he also acted as a hardware store.
Trying to keep up demand for all this without packaging machinery must have been a veritable nightmare. There was no conveyor belt to speed things along. There was no plastic carrier bags for him to sling at customers to pack themselves. And there was no sullen face that sulked should he have to do something for his customers.
Shopkeepers today just don't know they're born. For the customers of olden days, particularly the elderly, the local grocer was the only person they spoke to in a day and he provided their only source of comfort in what would otherwise be a lonely existence. He would stand and chat while he collected their goods from his shelves. He would then carefully wrap them while diagnosing their ailments or lamenting the behaviour of young people and see his customers off, even opening the door for them.
The old time grocer may have had a long day but he certainly would have felt a sense of pride in the fact that he had made these people happy, supplied all their needs for a day and given that personal touch with the wrapping and chatting.
How did things change so much in the last one hundred years and who, exactly, called for this change? A visit to the shops is not the same anymore. So many shops specialise in only one thing that it can take up to eight different shops to supply a day's needs. Every item you buy will be shrink wrapped by packaging machinery that has been programmed by an origami expert and will require a surgeons degree to get into.
Today's customers have little contact with the shop keeper. If they're lucky they may receive a grunt from them which will just about suffice in the signal that they are still alive. Food wrapped in plastic by food packaging machinery is silently slung at us so we can pack it in more plastic, the type guaranteed to remove digits on the way home.
When we get home we will break out the industrial strength scissors that we bought from the specialist scissor shop that now has to carry a licence to sell such dangerous goods. We can then waste half an hour of our lives trying to get into our food, thus aiding the weight loss diet because we eventually give it up as a bad job.
Still, at least we can sit down and relax with the daily newspaper and read about how plastic packaging contains carcinogenic agents and that this might just shorten our lives. The answer, apparently, is to use recyclable packaging that is bio-degradable and user friendly. So, that will be brown paper then?
You don't have to go that far back in time to come across a time when local grocer's shops would package everything up in brown paper bags for us to take home. Shopping was a pleasure that came with a personal touch. We weren't inundated with a plethora of plastic bags, plastic and polystyrene packaging and reams of cling film with no environmentally friendly way of disposing of them. Even people did become slightly more aware of environmental concerns it was then decided we shouldn't chop down trees for paper bags, but use this other rubbish instead.
Better communication systems and more choices in travel meant that people were spread further and further across the country. On top of that the population was growing at an alarming rate. This gave birth to the necessity for larger shops and more mass produced food that could be harvested, prepared and onto the shop shelves in as short a time as possible. It was also necessary to find a way of storing the food for longer, preventing contamination and making it last longer.
Of course, this would have been done originally in a factory by workers but at the end of the day, it simply wasn't a quick enough method and packaging machinery was called for. Machines were built that could prepare food and package it in a much more clinical and hygienic way, thus leading to less contamination but at the same time, fewer jobs as not so many people were needed to run these machines.
As time has gone by, packaging machinery has required less and less input other than the initial set up. Now, most packaging machinery comes equipped with its own on-board computer and after a few minutes programming by one person, it is set to run through more food preparation and packaging in one day than one person could carry out in a month. This has meant more job losses.
On top of this, we now understand more about the environmental impact that this non-recyclable packaging has on the environment. Landfill sites full of food packaging that takes forever to rot away are having a detrimental effect on the very air that we breathe.
Dyes in the printing on the packaging are also causing problems. Some of this packaging is shipped to other countries for an attempt at recycling but the material has to be washed and stripped of its dye first. This then runs into the local water system causing further pollution but sending the problem to a different area is just no good.
So, are we looking at a time that will see us going back to the days when food was packaged in brown paper? I, for one, hope so. The Americans have the right idea. Their groceries are packed in strong, recyclable paper bags. Not only are these good for our planet but have you seen someone carry them? Without handles, you have no choice but to carry the bulk of the weight in front of you in your arms. This is the correct way to carry a heavy weight.
Many a time I have seen women struggling back from shops with heavy plastic bags at their sides, pulling them down to a stooping posture and cutting into the hands. This is bad for the hand and arm joints, it is bad for the shoulders, back and neck and can cause lasting damage. A sensible bag that can be carried in the correct way and would not be harmful when disposed of has to be so much better than ruining our bodies and environment with this plastic rubbish. Even if it does mean the loss of packaging machinery.
Catherine Harvey has sinced written about articles on various topics from Culture and Society, Home and Wedding Gowns. Environmental expert Catherine Harvey looks at the role of in preparing food for market.. Catherine Harvey's top article generates over 1500000 views. to your Favourites.