The British Independent Fruit Growers’ Association (BIFGA) has launched a scathing attack on the retail environment, as it looks to improve returns for growers and ensure the future of UK fruit producers.
In a letter to Natural England, which had invited the association to contribute to its draft policy on food security and the environment, BIFGA chairman John Breach staunchly defended producers and insisted “food security must be preceded by security for producers”.
In the wide-ranging correspondence, Breach encouraged improvements to coldstorage facilities in wholesale markets; discouraged airfreight imports of produce that can be grown in the UK; urged EU and UK powers to grant aid to all producers not, as is sometimes the case, simply to those who choose to market through a producer organisation; and backed the new Groceries Supermarket Code of Practice and accompanying ombudsman.
Breach wrote: “BIFGA believes that successive national and local governments have failed to appreciate the many adverse effects that some large supermarket chains are having on English producers… Security of supply of English apples and pears has taken a real knock because the major supermarkets, which together control around 80 per cent of retail sales, have found it all too easy to import [top fruit] from around the world.
Breach urged the government and councils to act now to help correct the “serious mistakes of the past” and help ensure support for growers to allow them to secure future revenue. He said: “They must receive adequate returns for their produce to permit them to stay in business and re-invest. Retailers who force down prices to unrealistically low levels may please their shareholders and consumers in the short term, but such action is unsustainable long term.”
Breach insisted that if these points could be taken on board, producers would be more than able to ensure food security and protect the environment.
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