The Gangmasters Licensing Authority (GLA) has this week reported a largely pleasing response to its performance from the very businesses that it is designed to regulate. However, recession means that the monitoring body must now reconsider the way it operates and adopt a tougher approach.

As greater pressures take their toll along the food supply chain and profitability inevitably drops, many gangmasters and produce firms may think that cutting corners on the labour they use is one way to reduce costs. This, of course, is a false economy, and the GLA has absolutely no intention of taking it easy on those labour suppliers who break the law as a matter of course and treat their workers poorly.

There was some stark news this week, as it emerged that unemployment levels in the UK have risen above the two million mark for the first time since 1997. With that figure expected to rise again in 2010, no doubt the GLA will find itself with a whole new set of risks to tackle - for example, as the government agency has already suggested, firms taking on unemployed people who may still be in receipt of benefits.

The unveiling of a formal protocol between the GLA, retailers and their suppliers is imminent. It is imperative that the fresh produce industry wholeheartedly embraces this partnership approach, to continue stamping out those firms who are abusing a perfectly viable labour system.