The NFU is holding meetings with five major retailers as it continues its investigation into the fresh produce supply chain.
A report detailing production trends, sector profitability and price transmission is due to be published early this summer. It will detail extremes of retailer, packer and processor behaviour, expose bad practice in the chain and make recommendations for improving relationships and transparency between growers, packers and retailers.
The NFU has met with two retailers already, sits down with another next week and expects to complete talks with the final two in June.
The union’s horticulture and potato board chairman, Sarah Dawson, met with the NFU Council this week and reported that reaction from retailers had generally been positive. “While they are aware that not everything in there will make comfortable reading, they generally seem interested to better understand the long term production and economic trends for the sector and would appreciate a clearer steer from us on what could be done better in terms of their work with growers,” she said.
Dawson said it had proved trickier than expected to analyse supply chain margins, largely because of the lack of market information available in the horticulture sector. She added that growers, who will be anonymous in the report, had been very open in sharing their experiences of doing business with retailers, packers and processors. “They are taking a huge risk in collaborating with us on such a sensitive piece of work,” she added.
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