“Smoke and mirrors”, “ineffective” and “waste of time” are just some of the industry’s reaction to the OFT’s audit of the supermarket code of practice.

Unsurprisingly, the report found little to criticise the retailers on, with the main exception of the now defunct Safeway - a handy scapegoat some cynics might suggest. But, let’s be honest, did we really expect any different?

The OFT has not exactly covered itself in glory when it comes to this code and the fact, as one industry watcher puts it, they ignored the “reality of abusive trading practices” sums up the fact that the entire exercise was flawed from the start. John Vickers, the OFT chairman, said suppliers needed to overcome their fear of complaining.

Yet so far, the OFT has hardly encouraged suppliers to step forward - the first company to complain was told it did not have a valid complaint and was then publicly named. Understandably, suppliers were not falling all over themselves to join the complaints queue.

If anything, Vickers’s statement shows his complete lack of understanding of the issue. When your business rests on a knife-edge, the last thing you want to do is upset your biggest, and possibly only, customer. The sheer power of the retailers mean suppliers simply have to smile sweetly and accept what is given, or, more often, taken.

People not coming forward to complain about the retailers does not mean there is nothing to complain about, but simply that the code is inadequate and needs to be changed.