The Competition Commission has today published its emerging thinking document as the first stage in its investigation into the supermarket sector and given suppliers another chance to come forward with evidence of unfair treatment.
The CC has also announced its intention to focus on local markets as the next stage in the inquiry.
The 60-page emerging thinking document summarises evidence gathered so far on the issues of the supply chain, land banks and planning. It also features eight working papers and a survey of suppliers.
But the evidence gathered on the supply chain will leave many supermarket critics disappointed. “We have considered the evidence supplied concerning relationships between grocery retailers and their suppliers,” said Peter Freeman, chairman of the CC and of the inquiry group. “Whilst these have not indicated widespread problems in the supply chain, there are still concerns. We have found that bigger buyers do not always appear to get better terms from suppliers and food and drink manufacturers and processors as well as wholesalers, seem to be in reasonable shape. However, we have some concerns about farmers and we have not received as much specific evidence about unfair treatment of suppliers as we might have expected. There may well be many more examples out there but we need to hear them otherwise we would have difficulty coming to a conclusion. So we would appeal once more for suppliers with examples to come forward and assure then that requests for confidentiality will be taken on board.”
Freeman said the main concern now of his office is to focus on competition between retailers at local level. “We need to see what choices shoppers have in particular areas and how competition works between retailers of different sizes,” he said.
The commission is required to publish its final report by may 8, 2008, but is aiming to publish six month earlier, by the end of this year.
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