Television and radio broadcaster John Humphrys has launched a scathing attack on UK multiples, accusing them of squeezing their suppliers and selling tasteless fresh produce.

Writing in the Sunday Times yesterday, Humphrys described supermarket buyers as power-wielding profiteers who intimidate farmers and dictate consumer needs.

He criticised the retailers' category management schemes, implying they left smaller suppliers by the wayside in order to provide customers with a range of produce they did not want.

'The supermarkets say it [category management] is more efficient and helps to keep the prices down,' wrote Humphrys. 'And anyway, they say, there is more choice than ever before. That is undeniably true if you want, say strawberries in December, although why anyone would, when they have marginally less flavour than cotton wool, is one of life's little mysteries.' Citing the example of dwindling English apple varieties in national orchards, he said the multiples were not providing the range of produce native to the UK.

'Supermarkets want their produce to be uniform in appearance and blemish-free because they say that is what we want,' he wrote.

'And it's not only apples. Indigenous varieties of vegetables are disappearing from the fields and farms of Britain and the genetic pool is evaporating. Almost every seed planted in a British field is an F1 hybrid bred in Holland.' Humphrys' article followed the results of a Radio 4 poll in which listeners were invited to vote on whether they would be better off without supermarkets.

Some 71 per cent said they would.