UK fair trade call

CALLS FOR a fair trade deal for UK farmers have resurfaced at the annual meeting of the Farmers Union of Wales.

President Gareth Vaughan echoed recent comments from the Scottish NFU when he said the retailers treated their suppliers unfairly despite the voluntary code of practice.

“Dairy farmers are receiving less than the cost of production for their milk,” he said.

“The supermarket giants and the processors blame each other for this situation but the only thing for sure is that it’s the farmer who suffers at the end of the day.

“The FUW has long argued that the voluntary code of conduct designed to regulate how supermarkets deal with their suppliers simply isn’t working, and that remains our view today.

“We want legislation introduced to force the supermarkets to treat all their suppliers equitably – we need a fair trade initiative for food producers within the UK.”

But the Office of Fair Trading failed to find significant evidence of unfair practice when it reviewed the supermarkets’ code in March.

It is sifting through fresh evidence gathered since then, but has refused to say if new information has come to light or when it will be published.

Lucy Neville Rolfe, company secretary and group corporate affairs director at Tesco, told FWi that supplier complaints had not increased since the OFT’s probe and rejected the call for further legislation.

“It is in all our interests to build relationships and trust.

“Things that have been helpful are building libraries [of consumer trends and best practice], benchmarking and walking the chain together.

“Training programmes brought in on the back of the supermarkets’ code were also helpful.”