Campaign to Protect Rural England:
"Supermarkets could do more to help growers"
The poor weather this Spring and last season has put pressure on growers, who are now battling to get a reasonable price for their produce.
The Campaign to Protect Rural England has asked seven large chain retailers to provide examples of how they are supporting the rural economy.
Supporters of the Campaign have sent more than 7,000 emails to the CEOs of Tesco, Asda, Sainsbury's, Morrisons, Marks & Spencer, the Co-operative and Waitrose.
Despite some welcome initiatives, the survey found that supermarkets could easily do much more to help farmers the countryside, said Ian Woodhurst, CPRE's senior food and farming campaigner.
"Supermarkets dominate the grocery sector and our food chain. Given this, they need to use their immense market power to support the nation's farmers, the countryside they manage, and boost sales of local food," he added.
Mr Woodhurst urged supermarkets to take a more "joined-up" approach to farming, local food and our countryside so that consumers can buy high-quality food, knowing that farmers have been paid a fair price, while maintaining the beauty of the English countryside.
Andrew Opie, director of food and sustainability at the British Retail Consortium (BRC), said supermarkets were great supporters of local food producers.
“Retailers source the vast majority of products like milk, butter, eggs, carrots, potatoes and beef here in the UK and our members give clear country of origin on both fresh meat and processed meat products so that consumers can choose to buy British if that’s what they want.”
Source: fwi.co.uk