Well put! I personally don't shop in supermarkets as I think its crap food mainly and would rather get organic local (when possible) produce. This is mainly for sustainability and health reasons.

Some chains are ok but as you pointed out if they did not have their corporate/government friends making things cheaper for them then the local shops would be able to get product from cheaper sources. Kinda what you said.

On a secondary note I wish we could get solar in the UK. Well we can but you HAVE to connect it to the main grid which means the grid get the power. So if there is a fault on the grid you still don't get power even though you produce your own, bonkers! So it doesn't matter how cheap they are here!