There’s no doubt that psychology plays a huge part in supermarket negotiations.

All the power in recent years seems to have laid with the buyer. According to psychologists (p1), a culture of fear has arisen around supermarket supply that is not helpful for mental health.

What supplier has the cojones to give a take-it-or-leave-it price to a supermarket buyer? We have seen a number of high profile cases where losing a supermarket contract has been enough to put a supplier out of business. So the power buyers yield is enormous.

Strength in numbers through collaboration and the formation of co-operatives could be the way forward, psychologists say.

But it could also just be possible that the changing global supply situation could bring about a sea change in relations. If supplies get short, supermarkets will have no option but to pay the going rate.

As our pricing feature (p20) shows, retailers are having a rethink about how they present their strategies to the public.

With oil prices set to hit both production and packaging costs in a big way, buyers are simply not going to be able to keep a lid on increases. They are under pressure from consumers and the media to do so, but they’ll come in for even more criticism if retailers suddenly find there is no more English cauliflower, for instance.

Non-UK suppliers are perhaps in the strongest position to threaten to take their produce elsewhere if the price here doesn’t stack up, but UK growers also need returns that allow them to reinvest.

The psychological tables could be about to turn.