Having delayed watching Crop to Shop: Jimmy's Supermarket Secrets (7.30pm, BBC1 3 February) to catch the Leeds Spurs game (fortunately the Mighty Whites threw the game so they could concentrate once more on the real task in hand - securing promotion), I was praying the one hour 'exposé' of the supermarkets' evil importing ways would be diverting enough to keep me awake.
No such luck. But after resorting to using toothpicks to prop up the old eyelids, I caught enough to be able to share one important insight with you. If you recorded this DON'T BOTHER WATCHING IT. Unless you WANT to fall asleep, that is.
Despite the title, Jimmy Doherty - a watered-down version of his childhood pal Jamie Oliver - had few supermarket secrets to reveal. Even my mum knows that beans are imported from Kenya, for crissakes!
Instead, he meandered aimlessly along the "food superhighway" to marvel wide-eyed at potatoes being grown in the Egyptian desert, Maersk shipping containers being loaded off, er, ships, a Kenyan green bean-picking outfit, a huge Dutch greenhouse and a Ghanaian pineapple set-up.
There was the odd interesting bit. I didn't appreciate just how quickly food makes it from crop to shop (the pineapple was on shelf within two days). And I'm pleased Doherty didn't take the view imported food was intrinsically bad.
But he was far too credulous. He could and should have quizzed the potato farmer on the sustainability of pumping water from an underground water system that's being depleted by 500 litres for every kilo of spuds grown. Yet all we got was a lame: "I can't help wondering whether we need fresh potatoes out of season so badly."
Doherty couldn't help wondering a lot of things or rather one thing a lot of times. "I was in favour of locally produced food, but what I've seen here makes me wonder if the argument about air freight is that simple," he mused after seeing the Kenyan set-up. "Without this there would be nothing for these people. It's a real conundrum."
No, Jimmy. The real conundrum is why you were treated to an around-the-world jolly on licence payers' money. Not impressed.
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No such luck. But after resorting to using toothpicks to prop up the old eyelids, I caught enough to be able to share one important insight with you. If you recorded this DON'T BOTHER WATCHING IT. Unless you WANT to fall asleep, that is.
Despite the title, Jimmy Doherty - a watered-down version of his childhood pal Jamie Oliver - had few supermarket secrets to reveal. Even my mum knows that beans are imported from Kenya, for crissakes!
Instead, he meandered aimlessly along the "food superhighway" to marvel wide-eyed at potatoes being grown in the Egyptian desert, Maersk shipping containers being loaded off, er, ships, a Kenyan green bean-picking outfit, a huge Dutch greenhouse and a Ghanaian pineapple set-up.
There was the odd interesting bit. I didn't appreciate just how quickly food makes it from crop to shop (the pineapple was on shelf within two days). And I'm pleased Doherty didn't take the view imported food was intrinsically bad.
But he was far too credulous. He could and should have quizzed the potato farmer on the sustainability of pumping water from an underground water system that's being depleted by 500 litres for every kilo of spuds grown. Yet all we got was a lame: "I can't help wondering whether we need fresh potatoes out of season so badly."
Doherty couldn't help wondering a lot of things or rather one thing a lot of times. "I was in favour of locally produced food, but what I've seen here makes me wonder if the argument about air freight is that simple," he mused after seeing the Kenyan set-up. "Without this there would be nothing for these people. It's a real conundrum."
No, Jimmy. The real conundrum is why you were treated to an around-the-world jolly on licence payers' money. Not impressed.
More from this column
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