Supermarket practices came under heavy fire from UK terrestrial TV station Channel 4 this week, as the second part of a Dispatches documentary Supermarket Secrets turned the spotlight on fresh produce.
The hour-long programme used fruit and vegetables to exemplify what it believed were the worst examples of supermarket practices, from supplier-funded Bogofs to the over-emphasis on cosmetic appearance at the expense of taste.
English top-fruit and soft-fruit grower Clive Baxter told presenter Jane Moore: “We suffer quite a bit when asked to do promotions with them [retail customers],” adding that Bogofs hit especially hard. He cited one particular period of extended Bogof on English raspberries last season, which he claimed cost his business £50,000.
Baxter added that it is extremely difficult to run a business that is obliged to ride the rollercoaster from “periods of euphoria to periods of despair”.
He concluded: “What worries me about relationships with these very powerful people is we are like ants under a great elephant - and are going to be squashed.”
Moore then asked ex-Safeway ceo Carlos Criado Perez, now heading up Spanish chain Super Sol, the loaded question “Why do we [the UK] have such bland tasteless fruit when [that sold on European shelves] is so scrumptious?”
Perez said the British get the food they deserve. “In the UK it is the same standard bananas and grapes all the year ... sitting on the shelves like little soldiers looking all alike,” he added.
“I am absolutely convinced there is a trade off,” he said, claiming that it is impossible to produce efficient, long-lasting and uniform fruit without jeopardising the most important characteristic - taste.
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