One of the local butcher's on Kings Heath high street shut up shop not so long ago, which means we are even more vulnerable as a family to the supermarkets.

So it was with mixed feelings I read the recent survey that showed Asda had retained its crown as the UK's cheapest supermarket ahead of rival Tesco.

The chain came out top in trade magazine The Grocer's annual report based on the cost of household items bought at each of the major stores.

Overall, goods bought at all supermarkets are 0.5 per cent lower than when the survey was first launched eight years ago. Asda cost an average £167.60 per basket compared with Tesco at £ 170.64, Morrisons at £ 174.23, Sainsbury's at £177.91, Somerfield at £189.14 and Waitrose at £192.14.

But at what cost are these savings being made?

Supermarket food is becoming increasingly bland and, in many cases, seems to have lost all taste.

Today, the old adage that you pay for what you get has never been more true.

We used to shop at Asda when we lived in Scotland 15 years ago and more, but where we live in Birmingham there isn't a convenient store.

So we go to a Tesco outlet, purely because it is the closest. Like most people, we shop at supermarkets on cost and convenience.

After all, they are wonderful for non-food goods like washing powder and toilet rolls, have got a good reputation for beers and wines, and are certainly adequate for basic food items like baked beans and cornflakes.

But try eating a supermarket chicken and it is unrecognisable from a farm fresh one of old. Turkey is even worse. There is now a whole industry based on ersatz turkey. We buy our Christmas turkey from a local farmer down Redditch direction. There is no comparison. The supermarkets have even destroyed eggs.

Now, I would pay a small percentage extra to get decent quality stuff, but where are the alternatives?

So many small shops have been destroyed by the power of the supermarket. And, like lots of folk, we have a time problem. When time is precious you have to make a real effort to get to a speciality food shop - it is so much easier to give in to the siren pull of the supermarket.

The best eggs I have found in reasonable striking distance are at a farm just south of Rubery, but we get there once in a blue moon.

A lot of the meat we eat is brought down from visits to family in Yorkshire where some true local butchers of quality still remain. So you get wonderful lamb, which was clearly once happy and contented gambolling about in green fields, while barleyraised chickens taste as if they had been pecking around a farmyard.

We stick it all in cool bags and slam it in the freezer when we get home.

But should we have to go to such extreme lengths?

I am pinning my hopes on the encouraging rise of farmers' markets. In Moseley there is one a month and I must get down more often.

For one, they have great sausages. Farmers' markets seem to be well supported and we desperately need more of them.